Brain Derived PPARa Ligands

ABSTRACT

Methods of modulating peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARα) activity in a cell in a subject In need thereof are provided. The methods include administering an effective amount of a PPARα ligand to the subject where the PPARα ligand is selected from 3-hydroxy-2,2-dimethyl butyrate (HMB), hexadecananamide (HEX) and 9-octadecenamide (OCT), Methods of treating dementia, neurodegenerative disorders, lysosomal storage diseases and body weight disorders in a subject in need thereof are provided. The methods include administering an effective amount of a PPARα ligand to the subject.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 371 ofInternational Application No. PCT/US2016/037365, filed Jun. 14, 2016,which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/175,871filed Jun. 15, 2015; which are incorporated by reference herein in theirentirety.

SEQUENCE LISTING

The instant application contains a Sequence Listing which has beensubmitted electronically in ASCII format and is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety. The ASCII copy, created on Jun. 13, 2016, isnamed 14904-157 Sequence Listing_ST25.txt and is approximately 2 KB insize.

BACKGROUND

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α or PPARα belongs to a classof nuclear hormone receptors¹ that participates in a diverse range ofbiological functions including control of fatty acid transport andcatabolism², anti-inflammation³, immuno-modulation⁴, andanti-oxidation⁵. However, in a recent study⁶, it has been shown thatPPARα also plays an important role in the modulation of synapticfunction in hippocampus via transcriptional upregulation of CREB. It hasalso been delineated that activation of PPARα in hippocampal neuronsleads to the increase in ADAM10 transcription and subsequentnon-amyloidogenic proteolysis of APP²¹. These reports highlight alipid-independent role of PPARα in controlling brain function.Otherwise, it was believed that the presence of peroxisomes in abundancecould be important for the compensation of mitochondrial instability inthe adult brain hippocampus⁷.

Like many other nuclear hormone receptors, it is not known if all thebiological activity of PPAR-α also depends on its binding with theligand and subsequent translocation to the nucleus. Since interactionwith ligand plays an instrumental role in modulating the biologicaleffect of most nuclear hormone receptors²², an investigation into theexistence of endogenous ligands of PPARα in the hippocampus wasprompted. Successful identification of endogenous modulators of PPARαwould aid in understanding the endogenous regulation hippocampalfunction and memory by PPARα. However, little is known about thepresence of endogenous ligands of PPARα in the hippocampus and theirrole in regulating the synaptic activity. Although endocannabinoid-likemolecules including oleoylethanolamide^(23,24) andpalmitoylethanolamide²⁵, the fatty acid derivative20-carboxy-arachidonic acid²⁶, and leukotriene B4²⁷ have been consideredas endogenous PPARα ligands, these compounds are ubiquitously present indifferent tissues including liver²⁸, kidney²⁹ and brain³⁰. Furthermore,these compounds display a wide range of biological activities startingform antioxidant, anti-inflammation to neuroprotection^(25,29). Inattempt to find an endogenous ligand of PPAR-α, a recent study⁸identifies that 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycerol-3-phosphocholine(16:0/18:1-GPC) could serve as a potent ligand of PPAR-α in liver.However, until now, nothing is known about the presence of endogenousligand(s) in the hippocampus that are capable of modulating the PPARαactivity in hippocampal neurons.

In order to identify physiologically available ligands, affinitypurification was performed followed by gas phase mass spectrometry(GCMS) analyses in the nuclear extracts of lenti*ppara-overexpressedneurons. Then, the existence of these molecules was confirmed byaffinity purification of hippocampal extracts collected from wild-typeand Ppara-null animals against GST-PPAR-α recombinant protein followedby GCMS analyses. These analyses identified three unique ligands3-hydroxy-(2, 2)-dimethyl butyrate (HMB), hexadecanamide (HEX), and9-Octadecenamide (OCT) in brain hippocampus. Further structural analysesrevealed that two key amino acid residues Tyrosine 314 and 464 in theligand binding pocket of PPARα are important for the binding with theseligands, which was confirmed by making site-directed mutated constructsof PPARα, subsequent expression of these constructs in neuronal cellsusing lentiviral strategy, and GCMS analyses of the affinity-purifiednuclear fraction. The role of these ligands in controlling theexpression of synaptic proteins and regulating the synaptic function ofhippocampal neurons has also been analyzed.

The HMB, HEX and OCT ligands induce the activation of PPARα in braincells and increase synaptic functions via upregulation of differentsynaptic molecules and calcium entry. What is needed in the art arePPARα ligands for modulating PPARα activity and for treatment ofdisorders such as dementia, neurological disorders, lysosomal storagedisorders and body weight disorders.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Methods of modulating peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α(PPARα) activity in a cell in a subject in need thereof are provided.The methods include administering an effective amount of a PPARα ligandto the subject, the PPARα ligand being selected from the groupconsisting of 3-hydroxy-2,2-dimethyl butyrate (HMB), hexadecananamide(HEX) and 9-octadecenamide (OCT).

Methods of treating dementia, neurodegenerative disorders, lysosomalstorage diseases and body weight disorders in a subject in need thereofare provided. The methods include administering an effective amount of aPPARα ligand to the subject. The PPARα ligand is selected from the groupconsisting of 3-hydroxy-2,2-dimethyl butyrate (HMB), hexadecananamide(HEX) and 9-octadecenamide (OCT).

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIGS. 1A-1L. Identification of Endogenous Ligands of PPAR-α in the mousebrain hippocampus.

(FIG. 1A) A flow chart represents the procedure for the affinitypurification of nuclear ligands of PPAR-α. (FIG. 1B) GCMS analyses ofthe acetonitrile- and (FIG. 1C) chloroform-reconstructed nuclearextracts of WT and KO hippocampus (n=3 per group) after pulling downwith GST-PPARα. (Similar GCMS analyses were performed in (FIG. 1D)acetonitrile- and (FIG. 1E) chloroform-reconstituted nuclear extracts ofPparabeta-null hippocampal tissue (n=3 per group). Chemical structure of3-hydroxy, 2, 2-dimethyl butyrate (HMB) (FIG. 1F), hexadecanamide (HEX)(FIG. 1G), and 9-Octadecenamide or oleamide (OCT) (FIG. 1H). (FIG. 1I)The immunoblot analyses of eluate collected from glutathione columnprobed with anti-GST, anti-GST-PPAR-α, and anti GST-PPARβ antibodies(upper panel), and with anti-PPAR-α or anti-PPARβ antibody (lowerpanel). Histone 3 (H3) immunoblot was performed in the nuclear lysate(input) to show the purity of the nuclear extract (middle panel). (FIG.1J) Flow-chart of the GCMS analysis for identifying endogenous ligandsafter de novo synthesized PPARα. GCMS analyses of thechloroform-extracted nuclear fraction of (FIG. 1K) lenti-vector and(FIG. 1L) lenti-PPARα-LBD-transduced hippocampal neurons. Results areconfirmed after three independent experiments.

FIGS. 2A-2G. Analyses of the interaction of OCT, HEX, and HMB with PPARαby high-throughput analyses.

(FIG. 2A) A schematic presentation of TR-FRET analysis to analyze theinteraction between endogenous ligands and PPARα-PGC-1A complex. TR-FRETanalyses of (FIG. 2B) OCT, (FIG. 2C) HEX, and (FIG. 2D) HMB as plottedfluorescence vs. logarithmic scale of ligand concentration.Thermal-shift assay of (FIG. 2E) OCT, (FIG. 2F) HEX, and (FIG. 2G) HMBas described under materials and method section. Results are confirmedafter three independent experiments.

FIGS. 3A-3L. A proteomic approach to study the interaction betweenligands and PPARα in a molecular level.

(FIG. 3A) Ribbon representations of superposed structures of PPAR-αligand binding pocket along with its ligands OCT (FIG. 3A), HEX (FIG.3B), and HMB (FIG. 3C). groups of amino acids positioned at a distanceof 4 A° around the ligands were also shown in green colour. (FIG. 3D) Aplasmid map of PPARα gene cloned in pLenti6 vector and the restrictionsite to clone the entire PPARα gene as shown in the middle panel. Thedetailed map of FL Ppara, Y314D Ppara, Y464DPpara, and Y314D/Y464D Pparagene cloned in the vector using lentiviral packaging kit as supplied byLife technologies. Thermal shift assay of (FIG. 3E) FL PPARα and (FIG.3F) Y314D/Y464D PPARα protein. Tm represents the melting temperature.(FIG. 3G) A flow-chart represents the strategy of GCMS analyses for thedetection of endogenous ligands in Ppara-null neuronal extracts infectedwith lentivirus particles of different PPARα constructs. (FIGS. 3H-L)GCMS analyses in the GFP-affinity purified extracts of Ppara-nullhippocampal neurons transduced with (FIG. 3H) GFP only, (FIG. 3I)GFP-FLPpara, (FIG. 3J) GFP-Y314DPpara, (FIG. 3K) GFP-Y464DPpara, and(FIG. 3L) GFP-Y314D/Y464DPpara viruses.

FIGS. 4A-4S. The role of endogenous ligands of PPARα in PPRE-drivenluciferase activity in mouse primary astrocytes and neurons.

PPRE-luciferase activity in the mouse primary astrocytes after 4 hrs ofincubation with (FIG. 4A) OCT, (FIG. 4B) HEX, and (FIG. 4C) HMB at theirwide range of concentrations. Results are mean±SD of three independentexperiments *p<0.01 vs. control. (FIG. 4D) a cartoon represents thedetails of PPRE luciferase assay in primary cells infected withlentivirus particles of different PPARα constructs. PPRE luciferaseactivity was assayed in mouse primary astrocytes transduced with (E)only vector, (FIG. 4F) FLPpara, (FIG. 4G) Y314D, (FIG. 4H) Y464D, and(FIG. 4I) Y314D/Y464D PPARα genes after the treatment of different dosesof HEX, OCT, and HMB. PPRE luciferase activity in mouse primaryastrocytes pre-infected with lent viruses after the treatment ofincreasing doses of Wy14643, fenofibrate, and clofibrate [(FIG. 4J) onlyvector, (FIG. 4K) FLPpara, (FIG. 4L) Y314D, (FIG. 4M) Y464D, and (FIG.4N) Y314D/Y464D]. PPRE luciferase activity was assayed in mouse primaryhippocampal neurons transduced with (FIG. 4O) only vector, (FIG. 4P)FLPpara, (FIG. 4Q) Y314D, (FIG. 4R) Y464D, and (FIG. 4S) Y314D/Y464DPPARα genes after the treatment of different doses of HEX, OCT, and HMB.Results are mean±SD of three independent experiments.

FIGS. 5A-5L. The role of endogenous ligands of PPARα on themorphological plasticity of hippocampal neurons.

Double immunostaining of MAP-2 and phalloidin to measure the spinedensity in hippocampal neurons transduced with vector, FLPpara, andY464DPpara viruses after the treatment with (FIG. 5A) solvent (onlyDMSO), (FIG. 5B) OCT, (FIG. 5C) HEX, and (FIG. 5D) HMB. AMPA-drivencalcium influx was measured in OCT (red), HEX (green) and HMB(purple)-treated Ppara-null hippocampal neurons transduced with (FIG.5E) FLPpara, (FIG. 5F) Y314D, (FIG. 5G) Y464D, and (FIG. 5H) Y314D/Y464DPPARα genes. All neurons were treated with 50 μM of NMDA receptorantagonist N20C to inhibit passive calcium flow through NMDA receptor.(FIGS. 5I-L) Similarly NMDA-driven calcium influx was measured in thelentivius-infected hippocampal neurons in the presence of differentendogenous ligands. In these cases, Naspm HCl was treated to stop thepassive flow of calcium currents through AMPA receptor.

FIGS. 6A-6B. The subcellular localization of PPARα, β and γ isotypes inmouse brain hippocampus.

(FIG. 6A) The intracellular distribution of PPARα, β and γ were shown byimmunofluorescence (NeuN=green, PPARs=red) analyses in the CA1 regionsof hippocampus. (FIG. 6B) Nuclear (NE) and cytoplasmic extracts (CE) ofhippocampal tissue were immunoblotted for PPAR-α, β, and γ. Immunoblotanalyses were performed in 6-8 weeks old WT and Ppara-null mice (n=3 pergroup). The purity of the cytoplasmic fraction was validated by GAPDHimmunoblot analysis whereas histone 3 (H3) immunoblot was performed toevaluate the purity of nuclear fraction.

FIGS. 7A-7I. Identification of endogenous ligands of PPARα in the mousebrain hippocampus.

GC-MS analyses of chloroform- (FIGS. 7A & 7B) and acetonitrile- (FIG.7C) reconstituted nuclear extracts of WT hippocampus after pulling downwith GST-PPARα-LBD. Similar GC-MS analyses were performed in chloroform(FIG. 7D) and acetonitrile (FIG. 7E) reconstituted nuclear extractsafter pulling down with GST-PPARβ-LBD. FIG. 7F) The immunoblot analysesof eluate collected from glutathione column probed with anti-GSTantibody (upper panel), and anti-PPARα or anti-PPARβ antibodies (lowerpanel). Histone 3 (H3) immunoblot was performed in the nuclear lysate(input) to show the purity of the nuclear extract (middle panel). GC-MSanalyses of the chloroform-extracted nuclear fraction of lenti-vector-(FIG. 7G) and lenti-PPARα- (FIG. 7H) transduced Ppara-null hippocampalneurons. FIG. 7I) Neuronal extracts infected with lenti-vector andlenti-PPARα were analyzed for PPARα and then normalized with actin.Results were confirmed by three independent experiments.

FIGS. 8A-8I. Analyses of the interaction of OCT, HEX and HMB with PPARαby TR-FRET.

TR-FRET analyses of OCT (FIG. 8A), HEX (FIG. 8B) and HMB (FIG. 8C)plotted as fluorescence vs. logarithmic scale of ligand concentration.Thermal-shift assay of OCT (FIG. 8D), HEX (FIG. 8E) and HMB (FIG. 8F)was performed as described under the Materials and Method section.

Equation for full-length protein only:

y=50=−0.0652x ³+9.053x ²−408.09x+6012.7; x=45.96321

Equation for full length protein with OCT:

y=50=−0.0002x ⁵+0.052x ⁴−5.1349x ³+250.52x ²−6041.9x+57653; x=59.6128

Equation for full length protein with HEX:

y=0.0074x ³−0.8528x ²+31.967x−389.74; x=59.2835

Equation for full length protein with HMB:

y=−0.06529x ³+9.053x ²−408.09x+6012.7; x=58.494798

Ribbon representations of superposed structures of PPARα ligand bindingpocket along with its ligands OCT (FIG. 8G), HEX (FIG. 8H) and HMB (FIG.8I) are shown. Results are confirmed by three independent experiments.

FIGS. 9A-9L. Interaction between ligands and PPARα at the molecularlevel.

Atom-specific representations of superimposed structures of Y464D-PPARαligand binding pocket along with OCT (FIG. 9A), HEX (FIG. 9B) and HMB(FIG. 9C). Amino acids positioned at a distance of 4 A° around theligands were also shown in yellow color. FIG. 9D) Detailed maps ofFL-Ppara, Y314D-Ppara, Y464D-Ppara, and Y314D/Y464D-Ppara are shown.Thermal shift assays of (FIG. 9E) FL-PPARα and (FIG. 9F)Y314D/Y464D-PPARα proteins. Tm represents the melting temperature. (FIG.9G) Thermal shift assay for Y464D-PPARα alone and together with threeligands. GC-MS analyses in GFP-affinity purified extracts of Ppara-nullhippocampal neurons transduced with lentivirions containing GFP (FIG.9H), GFP-FL-Ppara (FIG. 9I), GFP-Y314D-Ppara (FIG. 9J), GFP-Y464D-Ppara(FIG. 9K), and GFP-Y314D/Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 9L).

FIGS. 10A-10U Hippocampal ligands of PPARα induce PPRE-driven luciferaseactivity in primary mouse astrocytes and neurons.

Astrocytes plated at 60-70% confluence were transfected withtk-PPREx3-Luc, a PPRE-dependent luciferase reporter construct. After 24h of transfection, cells were treated with different concentrations ofHEX (FIG. 10A), OCT (FIG. 10B) and HMB (FIG. 10C) for 4 h followed bymonitoring luciferase activity. Under similar experimental condition,MTT was performed to understand the effect of these ligands on cellviability (FIG. 10D, HEX; FIG. 10E, OCT; FIG. 10F, HMB). Results aremean±SD of three independent experiments. ^(a)p<0.001 vs. control.Ppara-null astrocytes were transduced with lentivirions containing emptyvector (FIG. 10G), FL-Ppara (FIG. 10H), Y314D-Ppara (FIG. 10I),Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 10J), and Y314D/Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 10K) for 48 hfollowed by transfection with tk-PPREx3-Luc. After 24 h of transfection,cells were treated with different doses of HEX, OCT and HMB for 4 hfollowed by monitoring luciferase activity. PPRE luciferase activity wasassayed in Ppara-null astrocytes transduced with lentivirions containingempty vector (FIG. 10L), FL-Ppara (FIG. 10M), Y314D-Ppara (FIG. 10N),Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 10O), and Y314D/Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 10P) after treatmentwith different doses of WY14643, fenofibrate, and clofibrate. PPREluciferase activity was assayed in primary hippocampal neuronstransduced with lentivirions containing empty vector (FIG. 10Q),FL-Ppara (FIG. 10R), Y314D-Ppara (FIG. 10S), Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 10T), andY314D/Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 10U) after treatment with different doses ofHEX, OCT and HMB. Results are mean±SD of three independent experiments.^(a)p<0.001 vs. control.

FIGS. 11A-11P. The role of endogenous ligands of PPARα on themorphological plasticity of hippocampal neurons.

Ppara-null hippocampal neurons were transduced with lentivirionscontaining GFP (vector), FL-Ppara, and Y464D-Ppara for 48 h followed bytreatment with vehicle (DMSO) (FIG. 11A), OCT (FIG. 11B), HEX (FIG.11C), HMB (FIG. 11D), and WY14643 (FIG. 11E) for 24 h. Then neurons werestained for phalloidin to measure spine density. F) A representativepicture of dendrite with spines (Cyan color) used for counting area ofspine heads. Area of spine heads (FIG. 11G) and number of spines (FIG.11H) in 10 μm of dendrites. Results are mean±SEM of 5 neurons per group.^(a)p<0.05 vs vector only; ^(b)p<0.05 vs FL-Ppara. AMPA-driven calciuminflux was measured in OCT (red), HEX (green) and HMB (purple)-treatedPpara-null hippocampal neurons transduced with lentivirions containingFL-Ppara (FIG. 11I), Y314D-Ppara (FIG. 11J), Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 11K), andY314D/Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 11L). All neurons were treated with 50 μM ofNMDA receptor antagonist N20C to inhibit passive calcium flow throughNMDA receptor. (FIG. 11M-P) Similarly NMDA-driven calcium influx wasmeasured in the lentivius-infected Ppara-null hippocampal neurons in thepresence of different endogenous ligands. In these cases, Naspm-HCl wastreated to stop the passive flow of calcium currents through AMPAreceptor. Results are mean of three independent experiments.

FIGS. 12A-12E. The subcellular localization of PPARα, β and γ isotypesin mouse brain hippocampus.

(FIG. 12A) The intracellular distribution of PPARα, β and γ were shownby immunofluorescence (NeuN, green; PPARs, red) analyses of the CA1regions of hippocampus. (FIG. 12B) Nuclear-enriched (NE) and cytoplasmicenriched (CE) fractions of hippocampal tissues were immunoblotted forPPARα, β, and γ. Histone 3 (H3) and GAPDH were included for monitoringpurity of nuclear extract and cytoplasmic extract, respectively.Immunoblot analyses were performed in 6-8 weeks old male WT andPpara-null mice (n=3 per group). Bands were scanned and protein/H3values are presented as relative to CE (FIG. 12C, PPARα; FIG. 12D,PPARβ; FIG. 12E, PPARγ). Results are mean±SEM of three mice per group.^(a)p<0.0001 vs CE.

FIGS. 13A-13C. TR-FRET and extraction of EC50 values. Curve-fit for OCT(FIG. 13A), HEX (FIG. 13B) and HMB (FIG. 13C).

FIGS. 14A-14C. Transduction of Ppara-null astrocytes with lentivirionscontaining different Ppara constructs.

FIG. 14A) Ppara-null astrocytes cultured on coverslips were transducedwith lentivirions containing FL-Ppara, Y314D-Ppara, Y464D-Ppara, andY314D/Y464D-Ppara. Forty-eight h after transduction, level of GFP wasmonitored in an Olympus IX81 fluorescence microscope. DAPI was used tovisualize nucleus. FIG. 14B) Similarly, 48 h after transduction, thelevel of PPARα [PPARα (53 kDa)+GFP (27 kDa)] was monitored by Westernblot. FIG. 14C) Bands were scanned and values (PPARα/Actin) presented asrelative to control. Results are mean±SD of three independentexperiments. ^(a)p<0.0001 vs control.

FIGS. 15A-15F. Peak integration statistics of GC-MS.

2,4-Bis(α,α-dimethylbenyl)phenol was used as internal standard(arrowhead) in GC-MS analyses (FIG. 15A, vector only; FIG. 15 B, FLPpara; FIG. 15 C, Y314D Ppara; FIG. 15 D, Y464D Ppara; FIG. 15 E,Y314D/Y464D Ppara). FIG. 15 F) Chemical structure, molecular weight andCAS number of 2, 4-Bis (α,α-dimethylbenyl)phenol.

FIGS. 16A-16H. OCT, HEX and HMB induce PPRE-driven luciferase activityin Pparb-null astrocytes in the presence of PPARγ antagonist.

FIG. 16A) Pparb-null primary astrocytes plated at 60-70% confluence in12-well plates were transfected with 0.25 μg of tkPPREx3-Luc (aPPRE-dependent luciferase reporter construct). Twenty-four hours aftertransfection, cells were treated with different concentrations of GW9662for 30 min followed by stimulation with rosiglitazone. After 4 h,luciferase activities were assayed. Data are mean±SD of three differentexperiments. ^(a)p<0.001 versus control; ^(b)p<0.05 & ^(c)p<0.01 versusrosiglitazone. After transfection, cells were also treated with GW9662followed by stimulation with OCT (FIG. 16B), HEX (FIG. 16C) and HMB(FIG. 16D). After 4 h, luciferase activities were assayed. ^(a)p<0.001versus control; ns, not significant. (FIG. 16E, SEQ ID NO: 9) Promotermap of CREB shows the presence of a consensus PPRE. ChIP analyses (FIG.16F) followed by real-time (FIG. 16G-H) validation of CREB promoterafter pulling down with PPARα and PGC1α. Data are mean±SD of threedifferent experiments. ^(a)p<0.001 versus control.

FIGS. 17A-17L. Effect of HEX, OCT and HMB on the expression of synapticmolecules in Ppara-null hippocampal neurons and neurons transduced withdifferent Ppara constructs.

(FIG. 17A) Immunoblot analyses followed by densitometric analyses ofNR2A (FIG. 17B), GluR1 (FIG. 17C) and CREB (FIG. 17D) were performed inPpara-null and WT hippocampal neurons treated with 5 μM HEX, 5 μM OCTand 50 μM HMB. Data are mean±SD of three different experiments.^(a)p<0.05 versus WT-control. Immunocytochemical analyses of NR2A (FIG.17E) and GluR1 (FIG. 17F) in WT and Ppara-null hippocampal neuronstreated with HEX, OCT and HMB. Hippocampal neurons were transduced withlenti-GFP for 48 h followed by treatment with different ligands.Immunoblot analyses followed by relative densitometric analyses of CREBin Ppara-null hippocampal neurons transduced with lentivirionscontaining different Ppara constructs followed by treatment with HEX(FIG. 17G-H), OCT (FIG. 17I-J) and HMB (FIG. 17K-L). Bands were scannedand presented as relative to control (FIG. 17H, HEX; FIG. 17J, OCT; FIG.17L, HMB). Data are mean±SD of three different experiments. ^(a)p<0.05vs FLPpara control.

FIG. 18. Analysis of the interaction of GW7647 with PPARα by TR-FRET.TR-FRET analysis of GW7647 was plotted as fluorescence vs. logarithmicscale of ligand concentration.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The embodiments disclosed below are not intended to be exhaustive or tolimit the scope of the disclosure to the precise form in the followingdescription. Rather, the embodiments are chosen and described asexamples so that others skilled in the art may utilize its teachings.

Methods of modulating peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α(PPARα) activity in a cell in a subject are provided. An effectiveamount of a PPARα ligand may be administered to the subject. The PPARαligand is selected from the group consisting of 3-hydroxy-2,2-dimethylbutyrate (HMB), hexadecananamide (HEX) and 9-octadecenamide (OCT).

The PPARα activity may be modulated in different cells includinghippocampal neurons and other brain cells.

The PPARα ligands may be administered to treat dementia,neurodegenerative disorders, lysosomal storage disorders or obesity.

“Treating”, “treat”, or “treatment” within the context of the instantinvention, means an alleviation of symptoms associated with a disorderor disease, or halt of further progression or worsening of thosesymptoms, or prevention or prophylaxis of the disease or disorder. Forexample, within the context of this invention, successful treatment mayinclude an alleviation of symptoms related to dementia,neurodegenerative disorders, lysosomal storage disorders, and bodyweight disorders. The treatment may include administering an effectiveamount of a PPARα ligand to the subject that results in an alleviationof symptoms associated with a disorder or disease, or halt of furtherprogression or worsening of those symptoms, or prevention or prophylaxisof the disease or disorder.

By way of non-limiting example, neurodegenerative disorders may beselected from neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis, Alzheimer's disease,Huntington's disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson'sdisease, including Parkinson's plus diseases such as multiple systematrophy (MSA), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), corticobasaldegeneration (CBD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB).

By way of non-limiting example, lysosomal storage disorders may beselected from Tay-Sach's disease, Fabry disease, Niemann-Pick disease,Gaucher disease, Hunter Syndrome, Alpha-mannosidosis,Aspartylglucosaminuria, Cholesteryl ester storage disease, ChronicHexosaminidase A Deficiency, Cystinosis, Danon disease, Farber disease,Fucosidosis, and Galactosialidosis.

The term “subject” or “patient” as used herein, refers to a mammal,preferably a human.

In some embodiments, practice of the present invention will employ,unless otherwise indicated, conventional techniques of molecularbiology, immunology, microbiology, cell biology and recombinant DNA,which are within the skill of the art. See e.g., Sambrook, Fritsch andManiatis, MOLECULAR CLONING: A LABORATORY MANUAL, (Current Edition);CURRENT PROTOCOLS IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (F. M. Ausubel et al. eds.,(Current Edition)); the series METHODS IN ENZYMOLOGY (Academic Press,Inc.): PCR 2: A PRACTICAL APPROACH (Current Edition) ANTIBODIES, ALABORATORY MANUAL and ANIMAL CELL CULTURE (R. I. Freshney, ed. (1987)).DNA Cloning: A Practical Approach, vol. I & II (D. Glover, ed.);Oligonucleotide Synthesis (N. Gait, ed., Current Edition); Nucleic AcidHybridization (B. Hames & S. Higgins, eds., Current Edition);Transcription and Translation (B. Hames & S. Higgins, eds., CurrentEdition); Fundamental Virology, 2nd Edition, vol. I & II (B. N. Fieldsand D. M. Knipe, eds.)

Pharmaceutical Compositions

The ligands described herein may be used alone or in compositionstogether with a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier or excipient.Pharmaceutical compositions of the present invention comprise atherapeutically effective amount of a ligand of PPARα, including3-hydroxy-2,2-dimethyl butyrate, hexadecananamide or 9-octadecenamide,together with one or more pharmaceutically acceptable carriers. As usedherein, the term “pharmaceutically acceptable carrier” means anon-toxic, inert solid, semi-solid or liquid filler, diluent,encapsulating material or formulation auxiliary of any type. Someexamples of materials which can serve as pharmaceutically acceptablecarriers are sugars such as lactose, glucose and sucrose; starches suchas corn starch and potato starch; cellulose and its derivatives such assodium carboxymethyl cellulose, ethyl cellulose and cellulose acetate;powdered tragacanth; malt; gelatin; talc; excipients such as cocoabutter and suppository waxes; oils such as peanut oil, cottonseed oil;safflower oil; sesame oil; olive oil; corn oil and soybean oil; glycols;such a propylene glycol; esters such as ethyl oleate and ethyl laurate;agar; buffering agents such as magnesium hydroxide and aluminumhydroxide; alginic acid; pyrogen-free water; isotonic saline; Ringer'ssolution; ethyl alcohol, and phosphate buffer solutions, as well asother non-toxic compatible lubricants such as sodium lauryl sulfate andmagnesium stearate, as well as coloring agents, releasing agents,coating agents, sweetening, flavoring and perfuming agents,preservatives and antioxidants can also be present in the composition,according to the judgment of the formulator. Other suitablepharmaceutically acceptable excipients are described in “Remington'sPharmaceutical Sciences,” Mack Pub. Co., New Jersey, 1991, incorporatedherein by reference.

The ligands described herein may be administered to humans and animalsin dosage unit formulations containing conventional nontoxicpharmaceutically acceptable carriers, adjuvants, and vehicles asdesired.

Methods of formulation are well known in the art and are disclosed, forexample, in Remington: The Science and Practice of Pharmacy, MackPublishing Company, Easton, Pa., 19th Edition (1995). Pharmaceuticalcompositions for use in the present invention can be in the form ofsterile, non-pyrogenic liquid solutions or suspensions, coated capsulesor lipid particles, lyophilized powders, or other forms known in theart.

Compositions of the invention may be formulated for delivery as a liquidaerosol or inhalable dry powder. Liquid aerosol formulations may benebulized predominantly into particle sizes that can be delivered to theterminal and respiratory bronchioles.

Liquid dosage forms for oral administration include pharmaceuticallyacceptable emulsions, microemulsions, solutions, suspensions, syrups andelixirs. In addition to the active ligands, the liquid dosage forms maycontain inert diluents commonly used in the art such as, for example,water or other solvents, solubilizing agents and emulsifiers such asethyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol, ethyl carbonate, EtOAc, benzylalcohol, benzyl benzoate, propylene glycol, 1,3-butylene glycol,dimethylformamide, oils (in particular, cottonseed, groundnut, corn,germ, olive, castor, and sesame oils), glycerol, tetrahydrofurfurylalcohol, polyethylene glycols and fatty acid esters of sorbitan, andmixtures thereof. Besides inert diluents, the oral compositions can alsoinclude adjuvants such as wetting agents, emulsifying and suspendingagents, sweetening, flavoring, and perfuming agents.

Solid dosage forms for oral administration include capsules, tablets,pills, powders, and granules. In such solid dosage forms, the activeligand is mixed with at least one inert, pharmaceutically acceptableexcipient or carrier such as sodium citrate or dicalcium phosphateand/or a) fillers or extenders such as starches, lactose, sucrose,glucose, mannitol, and silicic acid, b) binders such as, for example,carboxymethylcellulose, alginates, gelatin, polyvinylpyrrolidinone,sucrose, and acacia, c) humectants such as glycerol, d) disintegratingagents such as agar-agar, calcium carbonate, potato or tapioca starch,alginic acid, certain silicates, and sodium carbonate, e) solutionretarding agents such as paraffin, f) absorption accelerators such asquaternary ammonium compounds, g) wetting agents such as, for example,acetyl alcohol and glycerol monostearate, h) absorbents such as kaolinand bentonite clay, and i) lubricants such as talc, calcium stearate,magnesium stearate, solid polyethylene glycols, sodium lauryl sulfate,and mixtures thereof. In the case of capsules, tablets and pills, thedosage form may also comprise buffering agents.

Solid compositions of a similar type may also be employed as fillers insoft and hard-filled gelatin capsules using such excipients as lactoseor milk sugar as well as high molecular weight polyethylene glycols andthe like.

The solid dosage forms of tablets, dragees, capsules, pills, andgranules can be prepared with coatings and shells such as entericcoatings and other coatings well known in the pharmaceutical formulatingart. They may optionally contain opacifying agents and can also be of acomposition that they release the active ingredient(s) only, orpreferentially, in a certain part of the intestinal tract, optionally,in a delayed manner. Examples of embedding compositions that can be usedinclude polymeric substances and waxes.

The active ligands can also be in micro-encapsulated form with one ormore excipients as noted above. The solid dosage forms of tablets,dragees, capsules, pills, and granules can be prepared with coatings andshells such as enteric coatings, release controlling coatings and othercoatings well known in the pharmaceutical formulating art. In such soliddosage forms the active ligand may be admixed with at least one inertdiluent such as sucrose, lactose or starch. Such dosage forms may alsocomprise, as is normal practice, additional substances other than inertdiluents, e.g., tableting lubricants and other tableting aids such amagnesium stearate and microcrystalline cellulose. In the case ofcapsules, tablets and pills, the dosage forms may also comprisebuffering agents. They may optionally contain opacifying agents and canalso be of a composition that they release the active ingredient(s)only, or preferentially, in a certain part of the intestinal tract,optionally, in a delayed manner. Examples of embedding compositions thatcan be used include polymeric substances and waxes.

Dosage forms for topical or transdermal administration of a ligand ofthis invention include ointments, pastes, creams, lotions, gels,powders, solutions, sprays, inhalants or patches. The active componentis admixed under sterile conditions with a pharmaceutically acceptablecarrier and any needed preservatives or buffers as may be required.Ophthalmic formulations, ear drops, and the like are also contemplatedas being within the scope of this invention.

The ointments, pastes, creams and gels may contain, in addition to anactive ligand of this invention, excipients such as animal and vegetablefats, oils, waxes, paraffins, starch, tragacanth, cellulose derivatives,polyethylene glycols, silicones, bentonites, silicic acid, talc and zincoxide, or mixtures thereof.

Ligands of the invention may also be formulated for use as topicalpowders and sprays that can contain, in addition to the ligands of thisinvention, excipients such as lactose, talc, silicic acid, aluminumhydroxide, calcium silicates and polyamide powder, or mixtures of thesesubstances. Sprays can additionally contain customary propellants suchas chlorofluorohydrocarbons.

Transdermal patches have the added advantage of providing controlleddelivery of a ligand to the body. Such dosage forms can be made bydissolving or dispensing the ligand in the proper medium. Absorptionenhancers can also be used to increase the flux of the ligand across theskin. The rate can be controlled by either providing a rate controllingmembrane or by dispersing the ligand in a polymer matrix or gel. Theligands of the present invention can also be administered in the form ofliposomes. As is known in the art, liposomes are generally derived fromphospholipids or other lipid substances. Liposomes are formed by mono-or multi-lamellar hydrated liquid crystals that are dispersed in anaqueous medium. Any non-toxic, physiologically acceptable andmetabolizable lipid capable of forming liposomes can be used. Thepresent compositions in liposome form can contain, in addition to aligand of the present invention, stabilizers, preservatives, excipients,and the like. The preferred lipids are the phospholipids andphosphatidyl cholines (lecithins), both natural and synthetic. Methodsto form liposomes are known in the art. See, for example, Prescott(ed.), “Methods in Cell Biology,” Volume XIV, Academic Press, New York,1976, p. 33 et seq.

Aerosolized formulations of the invention may be delivered using anaerosol forming device, such as a jet, vibrating porous plate orultrasonic nebulizer, preferably selected to allow the formation of anaerosol particles having with a mass medium average diameterpredominantly between 1 to 5 μm. Further, the formulation preferably hasbalanced osmolarity ionic strength and chloride concentration, and thesmallest aerosolizable volume able to deliver effective dose of theligands of the invention to the site of the infection. Additionally, theaerosolized formulation preferably does not impair negatively thefunctionality of the airways and does not cause undesirable sideeffects.

Aerosolization devices suitable for administration of aerosolformulations of the invention include, for example, jet, vibratingporous plate, ultrasonic nebulizers and energized dry powder inhalers,that are able to nebulize the formulation of the invention into aerosolparticle size predominantly in the size range from 1-5 μm. Predominantlyin this application means that at least 70% but preferably more than 90%of all generated aerosol particles are within 1-5 μm range. A jetnebulizer works by air pressure to break a liquid solution into aerosoldroplets. Vibrating porous plate nebulizers work by using a sonic vacuumproduced by a rapidly vibrating porous plate to extrude a solventdroplet through a porous plate. An ultrasonic nebulizer works by apiezoelectric crystal that shears a liquid into small aerosol droplets.A variety of suitable devices are available, including, for example,AERONEB and AERODOSE vibrating porous plate nebulizers (AeroGen, Inc.,Sunnyvale, Calif.), SIDESTREAM nebulizers (Medic-Aid Ltd., West Sussex,England), PARI LC and PARI LC STAR jet nebulizers (Pari RespiratoryEquipment, Inc., Richmond, Va.), and AEROSONIC (DeVilbiss MedizinischeProdukte (Deutschland) GmbH, Heiden, Germany) and ULTRAAIRE (OmronHealthcare, Inc., Vernon Hills, Ill.) ultrasonic nebulizers.

Injectable preparations, for example, sterile injectable aqueous oroleaginous suspensions may be formulated according to the known artusing suitable dispersing or wetting agents and suspending agents. Thesterile injectable preparation may also be a sterile injectablesolution, suspension or emulsion in a nontoxic parenterally acceptablediluent or solvent, for example, as a solution in 1,3-propanediol or1,3-butanediol. Among the acceptable vehicles and solvents that may beemployed are water, Ringer's solution, U.S.P. and isotonic sodiumchloride solution. In addition, sterile, fixed oils are conventionallyemployed as a solvent or suspending medium. For this purpose any blandfixed oil may be employed including synthetic mono- or diglycerides. Inaddition, fatty acids such as oleic acid find use in the preparation ofinjectables. The injectable formulations can be sterilized, for example,by filtration through a bacterial-retaining filter, or by incorporatingsterilizing agents in the form of sterile solid compositions which canbe dissolved or dispersed in sterile water or other sterile injectablemedium prior to use.

In order to prolong the effect of a drug, it is often desirable to slowthe absorption of the drug from subcutaneous or intramuscular injection.This may be accomplished by the use of a liquid suspension ofcrystalline or amorphous material with poor water solubility. The rateof absorption of the drug then depends upon its rate of dissolutionwhich, in turn, may depend upon crystal size and crystalline form.Alternatively, delayed absorption of a parenterally administered drugform may be accomplished by dissolving or suspending the drug in an oilvehicle. Injectable depot forms are made by forming microencapsulematrices of the drug in biodegradable polymers such aspolylactide-polyglycolide. Depending upon the ratio of drug to polymerand the nature of the particular polymer employed, the rate of drugrelease can be controlled. Examples of other biodegradable polymersinclude poly(orthoesters) and poly(anhydrides). Depot injectableformulations may also be prepared by entrapping the drug in liposomes ormicroemulsions, which are compatible with body tissues.

A ligand described herein can be administered alone or in combinationwith other ligands, for a possible combination therapy being staggeredor given independently of one another. Long-term therapy is equallypossible as is adjuvant therapy in the context of other treatmentstrategies, as described above. Other possible treatments are therapy tomaintain the patient's status after the initial treatment, or evenpreventive therapy, for example in patients at risk.

Effective amounts of the ligands of the invention generally include anyamount sufficient to detectably an inhibition or alleviation ofsymptoms. The amount of active ingredient that may be combined with thecarrier materials to produce a single dosage form will vary dependingupon the host treated and the particular mode of administration. It willbe understood, however, that the specific dose level for any particularpatient will depend upon a variety of factors including the activity ofthe specific ligand employed, the age, body weight, general health, sex,diet, time of administration, route of administration, rate ofexcretion, drug combination, and the severity of the particular diseaseundergoing therapy. The therapeutically effective amount for a givensituation can be readily determined by routine experimentation and iswithin the skill and judgment of the ordinary clinician.

If the ligand is administered in combination with another compound, theterm “amount that is effective to modulate PPARα activity” is understoodto mean that amount of a ligand in combination with the additionalcompound to achieve the desired effect. In other words, a suitablecombination therapy according to the current invention encompasses anamount of the ligand and an amount of the additional compound, either ofwhich when given alone at that particular dose would not constitute aneffective amount, but administered in combination would be an “amountthat is effective to modulate PPARα activity”.

It will be understood, however, that the total daily usage of theligands and compositions of the present invention will be decided by theattending physician within the scope of sound medical judgment. Thespecific therapeutically effective dose level for any particular patientwill depend upon a variety of factors including the disorder beingtreated and the severity of the disorder; the activity of the specificligand employed; the specific composition employed; the age, bodyweight, general health, sex and diet of the patient; the time ofadministration, route of administration, and rate of excretion of thespecific ligand employed; the duration of the treatment; drugs used incombination or coincidental with the specific ligand employed; and likefactors well known in the medical arts.

The dose of a ligand to be administered to warm-blooded animals, forexample humans of approximately 70 kg body weight, is preferably fromapproximately 3 mg to approximately 5 g, more preferably fromapproximately 10 mg to approximately 1.5 g, most preferably from about100 mg to about 1000 mg per person per day, divided preferably into 1 to3 single doses which may, for example, be of the same size. Usually,children receive half of the adult dose.

Results

Role of PPARα in the Expression of Plasticity-Related Genes inHippocampus

PPARα is strongly expressed in hippocampal neurons^(6,31). Sincehippocam pal neurons are equipped with a wide-spectrum of synapticproteins related to Long term potentiation (LTP)¹⁰ and long termdepression (LTD)¹¹, the role of PPARα in regulating the expression ofdifferent LTP- and LTD-associated synaptic molecules was examined. LTPcauses a persistent increase in synaptic strength between pre- andpost-synaptic neurons, whereas LTD causes a persistent reduction ofsynaptic strength. An mRNA-based microarray followed by heat mapanalyses clearly indicated that hippocam pus of Ppara-null (KO) mice,but not wild type (WT) mice, downregulation of 28 genes, upregulation of34 genes and no alteration in 22 genes. (Data not shown.) Most of thedownregulated mRNAs are involved in LTP, including the ionotropic AMPAreceptors Gria1 and Gria3 mRNAs; ionotropic NMDA receptors Grin1, Grin2aand Grin2bmRNAs; immediate early genes (IEGs) mRNAs including Arc,Homer1 and Fos; and different synaptic membrane encoded mRNAs Adam10,Dlg4, Synpo, and Adcy1. On the contrary, most of the upregulated mRNAsare associated with LTD including different protein phosphatase mRNAssuch as; Ngfr, Pick1, Nos1, and Nfkb1. The downregulation of somecrucial LTP-associated mRNAs in KO hippocampus including Arc, Gria1,Grin2a, Grin2b, and Creb was separately confirmed by real-time PCRanalyses. Immunohistochemical analyses of PSD-95 (encoded by the Dlg4gene) in the presynaptic fibers of CA1 hippocampus and immunoblot assayof NR2A (encoded by Grin2a), GluR1 (encoded by Gria1), PSD-95, Arc, andCREB further indicated that hippocampus of KO brain expressed lessLTP-associated molecules than the hippocampus of WT mice.

Identification of novel nuclear ligands of PPARα in the hippocampusPPARs are nuclear receptors that require the binding of ligands foractivation of gene expression. Immunostaining of hippocampal section(FIG. 12A) and immunoblot analyses of nuclear-enriched fraction ofhippocampal extracts (FIGS. 12B-E) clearly demonstrated that PPARα, butneither PPARβ nor PPARγ, was present in the nuclei, These resultssuggest that the hippocampus has endogenous expression of PPARα aganoistand the such ligands should be present within the nucleus. In order toidentify these ligands, a gas chromatography mass spectrometric (GCMS)technology was adopted. Briefly, nuclear extracts were prepared formmouse hippocampus, incubated with a GST-tagged PPARα ligand bindingdomain (LBD), purified with affinity chromatography, reconstituted withchloroform or acetonitrile, and GCMS analyses preformed. (FIG. 1A, FIGS.7A-C.). Analysis chloroform extracts displayed two distinct peaksmatching 9-octadecenamide (OCT) with an m/z at 23.03 minute (FIG. 7A)and hexadecanamide (HEX) with an m/z at 21.45 minute (FIG. 7B). On theother hand, GC-MS analyses of the acetonitrile fraction of affinitypurified hippocampal nuclear extract resulted in a distinct peak of m/z160.0 at 14.48 minutes that mated the NIST library for 3-hydroxy (2,2)-dimethyl butyric acid ethyl ester (HMB) (FIG. 7C). Interestingly,GCMS analyses of hippocampal nuclear extracts after pulling down withPPARβ-LBD did not exhibit any peak (FIG. 7D-E), suggesting that thesethree hippocampal ligands could be specific for PPARα. The fraction ofhippocampal nuclear extracts eluted through the glutathione column wasfurther immunoblotted to validate the accuracy of the affinitypurification procedure, which clearly showed that all parametersincluding the amount of hippocampal tissue, amount of recombinantprotein, and the volume of eluate were kept constant in all casesthroughout the assay (FIG. 1I, FIG. 7F). However, the above-mentionedassay was unable to demonstrate if these ligands could display similarinteraction with de novo-synthesized PPARα. Therefore, next culturedPpara-null hippocampal neurons were infected with lentiviral particlesof full-length PPARα and then immunoprecipitation performed followed byGCMS analyses (FIG. 1J, FIG. 7G-H). Similar to the previousobservations, both OCT (FIG. 1K) and HEX (FIG. 1L) were found to bebound to de novo-synthesized PPARα in lenti-FLPara-transduced (FIG. 7H),but not with empty lenti-vector-transduced Ppara-null neurons (FIG. 7G).The efficiency of gene transduction was measured by immunoblot analysesof cell extract with PPARα antibody (FIG. 7I. In addition, theseanalyses successfully identified a group of biological ligands of PPARα,which are endogenously produced in the hippocampus. Some of thesedetected compounds are sulfur-containing unknown compounds such asthiazoles (MW 220-240), thiosemicarbazones (MW 190-200) and thiazolidineesters (MW 250-270) (Table 2). However, these compounds were excludedfrom this study because of their unknown biosynthetic pathway,relatively poor match-factor (<65), and commercial unavailability.Trans-O-dithiane-4, 5 diol is the oxidized product of DTT used in thebuffer whereas D-Galactono 1, 4-lactone 5, 6-octylidene is excludedbecause of the commercial unavailability of this compound required toconfirm its association with PPARα. Taken together, our GC-MS analysesidentified OCT, HEX and HMB as three putative, endogenously produced,but also commercially available, PPARα ligands.

Next, Time Resolved-Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (TR-FRET)analysis was performed to confirm the interaction between these ligandsand PPARα. The optimized TR-FRET analysis (FIG. 2A, FIG. 8A-C))indicated that PGC-1α-PPARα LBD complex displayed a strong interactionwith all these three ligands (FIG. 2B-D, FIG. 8A-C). FIG. 13 shows howthese data were fit and EC50 values extracted for OCT (A), HEX (B) andHMB (C). In all cases, TR-FRET signals (FIG. 2D, FIGS. 8A-C)) releasedby PPARα LBD showed a steady increase. Although the signal intensity wasobserved higher in HMB compared to OCT (FIG. 2B, FIG. 8A) and HEX (FIG.2C, FIG. 8B), both OCT and HEX generated FRET signals at much lowerconcentrations than that of HMB. On the other hand, a large thermalshift was observed as evidenced by a change in melting temperature ofpurified PPARα-LBD protein when incubated with these ligands (FIG. 2E-G,FIG. 8D-F) suggesting that these ligands truly interact with the ligandbinding domain of PPARα with high efficiency.

Molecular Characterization of the Interaction Between the Ligand BindingDomain of PPARα and its Novel Ligands

The next aim was to characterize the molecular interaction of theseligands with the PPARα-LBD. The in silico computer-aided cheminformaticanalyses generated a reasonable docked pose of these ligands in thePPARα-LBD (FIG. 3A-C, FIG. 8G-I). The docked pose of all three ligandsshowed two potential hydrogen bonds between the ligand and twoactive-site residues, Tyr 314 (Y314) and Tyr 464 (Y464) (FIG. 3B), ofthe PPARα-LBD. The ligand-binding surface is amphipathic, as it sharedboth a negatively charged electrostatic surface and a few patches of apartial positively charged surface with mostly lipophilic, and somehydrophilic patches. Imposing the most stringent docking protocols, areasonable docked poses of OCT (a total score of 10.15, a polar score of1.05, and a crash score of −1.49; total binding energy −25.56 kcal/mol),HEX (a total score of 10.01, a polar score of 1.81, and a crash score of−1.04; total binding energy −26.3 kcal/mol), and HMB (a total score of5.63, a polar score of 1.93, and a crash score of −1.55; total bindingenergy −10.5 kcal/mol) were obtained for PPARα. Interestingly, in thecase of both PPARβ and PPARγ, by applying similar docking protocols, wefailed to obtain any docked pose for these ligands, suggesting that theinteraction of all three ligands with PPARα-LBD is specific and notpossible in other PPAR isoforms. To further confirm this observation, insilico mutation analysis was performed, in which OCT, HEX, and HMB wereplaced in the ligand-binding pocket of Y464D-PPARα. After energyminimization (total binding energy is −15.6 kcal/mol for OCT, −14.3kcal/mol for HEX and −5.04 kcal/mol for HMB), all three ligands wereobserved to be located far (>4 A°) from aspartate (D) residue toestablish any hydrogen bond (FIG. 9A-C), suggesting that the mutation oftyrosine 464 to aspartate significantly impairs the interaction of theseligands with PPARα. However, in silico modeling of protein-ligandinteraction is hypothetical and requires rigorous experimental analysisfor further validation.

Lentivirus-mediated de novo expression studies were performed, wherewild type full-length (GFP-FLPpara) was overexpressed and threedifferent LBD-mutated PPARα (GFP-Y314D, GFP-Y464D and GFP-Y314D/Y464DPpara) recombinant proteins (FIG. 9D) were expressed in neurons followedby binding analyses with three endogenous ligands. Briefly, sitedirected mutagenesis was performed in the mouse PPARα with Y314 and Y464residues replaced separately or together with aspartate (D). After that,the entire mouse GFP-Ppara gene (GFP-FLPpara) and three differentmutated genes were cloned in the pLenti6/V5-TOPO lentiviral expressionvector (FIG. 3D), packaged in lentivirus particle with HEK293FT cells,purified full length and mutated PPARα proteins in a GFP-affinitycolumn, and finally thermal shift assays were performed in order toanalyze their conformational stability. Both full length (FIG. 3E, FIG.9E) and mutated (FIG. 3F, FIG. 9F) proteins displayed a similar patternof thermal shift with equivalent melting temperature (Tm) suggestingthat the mutations in Y314 and Y464 residues did not alter theconformational stability of PPARα. Moreover, OCT, HEX and HMB did notalter the Tm in Y464D-PPARα, demonstrating that mutation of tyrosine 464to aspartate significantly impacted the binding of these ligands to theLBD of PPARα (FIG. 9G). In another experiment, Ppara-null hippocampalneurons were transduced with different lentiviral PPARα constructs andtransduction efficiencies were basically the same in all cases (FIG.14A) and the level of PPARα was comparable in cells transduced withdifferent constructs (FIGS. 14B-C). After 48 h of transduction, thecells were homogenized, passed through GFP-affinity column, eluted,fractionated with chloroform-methanol, and finally analyzed by GC-MS forthe detection of ligands. Interestingly, we observed that theaffinity-purified nuclear extract of lenti-GFP-FLPpara (FIG. 3I, FIG.9I), but not lenti-GFP-transduced (FIG. 3H, FIG. 9H) Ppara-null neuronscontained these ligands. Interestingly, the mutation of Y314 was foundto partially impact the ligand binding affinity of PPARα as we detectedlow amount of both OCT and HEX in the nuclear extract oflenti-GFP-Y134D-Ppara transduced Ppara-null neurons (FIG. 3J, FIG. 9J).On the other hand, mutation of the Y464 completely knocked down theligand binding affinity as we observed profound loss of ligand bindingin both lenti-GFP-Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 3K, FIG. 9K) andlenti-GFP-Y314D/Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 3L, FIG. 9L)-transduced Ppara-nullneurons. Throughout these analyses, we used 2, 4-bis (α, α-dimethylbenzyl) phenol as an internal standard (Supplementary FIG. 5A-F). Wenormalized peak area of different ligands with that of internal standardand then quantified the binding affinity of these ligands with differentconstruct of PPARα by peak integration statistics (Table 1). Takentogether, the detailed GC-MS analyses clearly indicated that both Y314and Y464 residues of the PPARα-LBD were crucial for its interaction withendogenous ligands.

Next, the role of these ligands in controlling the transcriptionalactivity of PPARα was monitored. First, a PPRE-driven luciferaseactivity assay was performed in cultured astrocytes treated withdifferent concentrations of OCT (FIG. 4A, FIG. 10B), HEX (FIG. 4B, FIG.10A), and HMB (FIG. 4C, FIG. 10C). All three ligands increased the PPREluciferase activity in a dose dependent manner (FIG. 10A-C.). However,PPRE-luciferase gene-transfected astrocytes displayed significant levelof cytotoxicity with higher concentrations of HEX (FIG. 10D), OCT (FIG.10E) and HMB (FIG. 10F), justifying the decrease of PPRE-luciferaseactivity with higher doses of ligands (FIGS. 10A-C). Consistent with theTR-FRET assay, both OCT and HEX increased PPRE-luciferase activity atmuch lower concentration as compared to HMB (FIG. 10A-C.). Similarly,these ligands were also able to induce PPRE luciferase activity in Pparanull astrocytes transduced with lenti-FLPPara (FIG. 4E, FIG. 10E), butnot lenti-vector (FIG. 10D.).

To further confirm the specificity of these ligands to PPARα, weperformed PPRE-luciferase assay in PPARβ KO (Pparb-null) astrocytes.These astrocytes were pre-treated with PPARγ-antagonist GW9662 tonullify the involvement of PPARγ in reporter assay. Inhibition ofrosiglitazone-mediated increase in PPRE-luciferase activity by GW9662(FIG. 16A) suggests that this inhibitor is capable of suppressing thefunction of PPARγ in Pparb-null astrocytes. OCT (FIG. 16B), HEX (FIG.16C) and HMB (FIG. 16D) markedly increased PPRE luciferase activity inPparb-null astrocytes. Interestingly, GW9662 remained unable to inhibitOCT-, HEX- and HMB-mediated increase in PPRE-luciferase activity inPparb-null astrocytes (FIG. 16B-D), indicating the specificity of theseligands towards PPARα. To further confirm this finding, we performedChIP analyses of the CREB promoter (FIG. 16E) as described recently⁶ andobserved that all three ligands stimulated the recruitment of PPARα andits coactivator PGC1a to the CREB promoter (FIGS. 16F-H). Since Y314 andY464 residues of PPARα-LBD were crucial for the interaction withhippocampal ligands, we examined whether these residues were alsoinvolved in hippocampal ligand-mediated activation of PPARα. Asexpected, HEX, OCT and HMB remained unable to induce PPRE-drivenluciferase activity in Ppara-null astrocytes (FIG. 11G). However, allthree ligands markedly induced PPRE reporter activity in Ppara-nullastrocytes that were transduced with lentivirions containing FL-Ppara(FIG. 10H). On the other hand, Y314D mutation in PPARα-LBD displayedpartial induction of PPRE-luciferase activity (FIG. 4G, FIG. 10I) as weobserved in our GC-MS analysis that the interaction of all three ligandswas partially compromised with Y314D PPARα. Consistent with the GC-MSresults, all three ligands were unable to stimulate PPRE-luciferaseactivity in Ppara-null astrocytes infected with lentiviruses containingeither Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 4H, FIG. 10J) or Y314D/Y464DPpara (FIG. 4I,FIG. 10K) viruses, suggesting that the Y464D mutation is sufficient toknockdown PPARα activation by its endogenous hippocampal ligands.Commercial ligands of PPARα (WY14643, fenofibrate and clofibrate) werealso unable to induce PPRE-luciferase activity in Ppara-null astrocytes(FIG. 10L). However, these commercial ligands markedly inducedPPRE-luciferase activity in Ppara-null astrocytes that were transducedwith lenti-FL-Ppara (FIG. 10M). On the other hand, commercial ligands ofPPARα displayed no luciferase activity when Ppara-null astrocytes weretransduced with lenti-Y314D-Ppara (FIG. 4L, FIG. 10N), lenti-Y464D-Ppara(FIG. 4M, FIG. 10O), and lenti-Y314D/Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 4N, FIG. 10P)suggesting that both Y314 and Y464 residues of PPARα are important forthe binding with commercially available ligands. Similar to astrocytes,the transduction of either lenti-Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 4R, FIG. 10T) orlenti-Y314D/Y464D-Ppara (FIG. 4S, FIG. 5U), but neither lenti-FL-Ppara(FIG. 4P, FIG. 10Q-R) nor lenti-Y314D-Ppara (FIG. 4Q, FIG. 10S),completely abrogated the PPRE-luciferase activity in OCT-, HEX-, andHMB-treated Ppara-null hippocampal neurons. Collectively, these resultssuggest a mandatory role for the Y464 residue and a partial role for theY314 residue in the binding and activation of PPARα by endogenoushippocampal ligands.

The Role of the Endogenous Ligands of PPARα in Regulating the SynapticFunction of Hippocampal Neurons

Next, we investigated whether these hippocampal ligands were capable ofimproving synaptic function of hippocampal neurons. Immunoblot (FIG.17A) followed by relative densitometric analyses (FIG. 17B-D) andimmunofluorescence analyses of NR2A (FIG. 17E) and GluR1 (FIG. 17F)clearly demonstrated that HEX, OCT and HMB upregulated, NR2A, GluR1 andCREB in WT, but not Ppara-null, hippocampal neurons, suggesting thatthese ligands increased the expression of synaptic molecules via PPARα.

Dendritic spines are the crucial mediators of synaptic transmissionamong central neurons and often serve as a primary candidate for thelong term morphological substrates of neuronal plasticity^(12,13).Therefore, the effect of these ligands on the increase of spine densityin cultured hippocampal neurons was studied. Briefly, mouse Ppara-nullhippocampal neurons were transduced with lentivirus containing emptyvector, FL-Ppara, or Y464D-Ppara for a week followed by the treatmentwith OCT, HEX, and HMB for four more days. After that, neurons werelabelled with phalloidin to monitor the spine density. Interestingly,the transduction of Ppara-null neurons with lenti-Y464D-Ppara, but notlenti-FL-Ppara, significantly attenuated the density of dendritic spines(FIG. 5A, FIG. 11A). Moreover, the treatment with OCT (FIG. 5B, FIG.11B), HEX (FIG. 5C, FIG. 11C), and HMB (FIG. 5D) and the syntheticagonist WY14643 (FIG. 11D) stimulated the density of spines only whenPpara-null neurons were transduced with lenti-FL-Ppara, but not withlenti-Y464D-Ppara further suggesting that the PPARα Y464 residue iscrucial for the induction of morphological plasticity by its endogenousligands. This observation was further validated by measuring the area ofspine heads (FIG. 11F-G) and number of spines (FIG. 11H) in HEX, OCT,and HMB-treated Ppara-null neurons. HEX (FIG. 17G-H), OCT (FIG. 17I-J)and HMB (FIG. 17K-L) stimulated the expression of CREB in Ppara-nullhippocampal neurons that were transduced with lentivirons containing theFL-Ppara gene. On the other hand, HEX, OCT and HMB remained unable toincrease the expression of CREB in Ppara-null hippocampal neurons thatwere transduced with lenti-Y464D-Ppara and lenti-Y464D/Y314D-Ppara (FIG.17G-L). Moreover, Y314D mutation only partially restored the expressionof CREB in response to OCT, HEX, and HMB in lenti-Y314D-Ppara transducedPpara-null neurons (FIG. 17G-L).

Calcium oscillation through metabotropic receptors has been implicatedin synaptic plasticity and recently we have demonstrated that both AMPAand NMDA elicited much weaker calcium influx and a smaller amplitudeoscillation in Ppara-null than WT hippocampal neurons⁶. Consistently, wehave seen that HEX, OCT and HMB stimulated AMPA- and NMDA-medicatedcalcium influx in lenti-FL-Ppara-transduced Ppara-null hippocampalneurons (FIG. 11I-P). However, HEX, OCT and HMB remained unable toincrease AMPA- (FIG. 5E-H, FIG. 11I-L) and NMDA- (FIG. 5I-L, FIG. 11M-P)mediated calcium influx in Ppara-null hippocampal neurons that weretransduced with either lenti-Y464D-Ppara or lenti-Y314D/Y464D-Ppara. Onthe other hand, lenti-Y314D-Ppara was only able to partially restoreHEX-, OCT- and HMB-elicited calcium influx in AMPA- or NMDA-treatedPpara-null hippocampal neurons (FIGS. 6J & M). These results suggestpivotal role of Y464 residue and limited role of Y314 residue of PPARαin OCT-, HEX-, and HMB-stimulated calcium influx through NMDA andAMPA-sensitive receptors.

Discussion

Since PPARα has been reported to be localized in the different parts ofthe brain³² and might play crucial role in controlling different brainfunction^(6,14), there is a growing interest in identifying theendogenous agonist for PPAR-α in this tissue. Although different studiesspeculated anandamides or 9-olylethanolamide could serve as centralligands of PPARα¹⁵, there is no experimental evidence that shows themolecular interaction between 9-oleoylethanolamide and PPARα, however9-oleoylethanolamide was shown to display PPARα-independent effects¹⁶.Moreover, there are many structurally similar fatty acyl amidesavailable in the CNS that have not been evaluated as potentialendogenous ligands of PPARα. The isolation and characterization of threenovel ligands of PPARα have been delineated (octadecenamide (OCT),hexadecanamide (HEX), and 3-hydroxy-2,2-dimethyl butyrate (HMB)) fromthe hippocampus. First, GC-MS analyses of PPARα LBD-pulled down fractionof hippocampal nuclear extract revealed the existence of thesecompounds. Interestingly, these three compounds were detected only inPPARα LBD-, but not PPARβ LBD-pulled down fraction of hippocampalnuclear extract, suggesting that these ligands are specific for PPARα.In addition to these three major ligands, we also detected somethionated compounds including thiazoles (mw 220-240), thiosemicarbazones(mw 190-200), and thiazolidine esters (mw 250-270) while performingGC-MS analyses. Second, de novo establishment of PPARα by lentiviraltransduction of the Ppara gene in Ppara-null hippocampal neuronsfollowed by similar GC-MS analysis also resulted in the detection ofthese three ligands. Third, further characterization of these moleculesby TR-FRET and thermal shift assay revealed that HEX, OCT and HMBstrongly interacted with the LBD of PPARα. The high-throughput studiesindicated that all three ligands served as full ligands of PPARα as weobserved the slope of the curve derived from both FRET and thermal-shiftassay shifted along the positive direction of X axis. While measuringtheir affinity, EC50 values of these ligands (EC50_(OCT)=4.31 μM;EC50_(HEX)=4.36 μM; EC50_(HMB)=31.6 μM) were observed higher than thesame for GW7647 (EC50=6.62 nM), a pharmacological agonist of PPARα (FIG.18). These results suggest that these newly discovered hippocampalligands have less affinity compared to commercially available ligands.

The in silico analysis, site-directed mutation of Y314 and Y464 residuesof PPARα followed by lentiviral manipulation of these genes inPpara-null hippocampal neurons revealed minimal binding of PPARα withthese ligands as evident from the GC-MS analyses. The results also foundthat both Y314 and Y464 residues of PPARα are involved in theinteraction with these ligands, with the PPARα Y464 residue being morecritical than the Y314 residue in terms of its interaction with theendogenous ligands. This observation was further validated by analysisof the transcriptional activity of PPARα via PPRE luciferase assayswhere Y464D mutation of PPARα did not restore PPRE-luciferase activityin OCT-, HEX-, and HMB-treated Ppara-null hippocampal neurons. Themutation of tyrosine to aspartate might generate a conformationalinstability to PPARα protein. However, the thermal melting curve ofFL-PPARα and mutated PPARα did not show much difference in terms of themelting temperature of the protein suggesting that this mutation doesnot affect the conformational stability of PPARα. Previous studies havereported the 9-oleylethanolamine could serve as a ligand for PPARα inthe brain; however we could not detect 9-oleylethanolamine in hippocampus by GC-MS after pulling down the hippocampal extracts withrecombinant PPARα LBD. One possibility is that PPARα LBD has been pulleddown only from the nuclear extracts and that 9-oleylethanolamine is notpresent in the nucleus. The nuclear fraction of PPARα was targeted forits ligand detection as PPARα is constitutively present in nuclei ofhippocampal neurons.

Recently, it has been shown that PPARα regulates the transcription ofCREB and controls the expression of CREB-associated synaptic genes⁶. Inanother study, we have shown that statin-mediated nuclear activation ofPPARα is also important to regulate the expression of neurotrophins indifferent brain cells³¹. Our detailed molecular interaction analysesreveal that statins interact with L331 and Y334 residues of PPARα LBD inthe presence of PGC1a and controls the transcription of CREB. However,commercially available ligands and the endogenous ligands described inthis study, do not interact with these two residues of PPARα. Instead,these molecules interact with Y314 and Y464 residues of the PPARα LBD.Our site-directed mutatagenesis studies followed by GC-MS analysesconfirmed that these residues of PPARα controlled its association withendogenous ligands, however PPARα Y464 residue appeared to be morecrucial than Y314. Moreover, the PPRE-driven reporter assay indicatedthat the mutation of Y464 of PPARα completely abolished the activationof PPARα, whereas the mutation of Y314 only partially compromised thetranscriptional efficiency of PPARα suggesting the importance of Y464 inthe PPARα-LBD is the most crucial amino acid residue for its interactionwith endogenous ligands.

Characterizing drugs for improving synaptic plasticity is an importantarea of research. Interestingly, these hippocampal ligands increasedsynaptic properties of hippocampal neurons. However, these compoundsstimulated the expression of different synaptic molecules in WT, but notin Ppara-null neurons. Stimulation of dendritic spine formation andincrease in NMDA- and AMPA-driven calcium influx by hippocampal ligandsin Ppara-null hippocampal neurons upon establishment of FLPpara, but notY464DPpara, indicates the importance of Y464 residue of PPARα insynaptic properties of hippocampal ligands. While Y464 residue of PPARαwas fully responsible for the functioning of these ligands, Y314 residuewas also partly involved in this process. Earlier studies suggest thatOCT could be beneficial in controlling sleep as it has been found in thecerebrospinal fluid during sleep deprivation³⁴. Since OCT and two othercompounds HEX and HMB are constitutively present in the hippocampus asPPARα ligands, it would be interesting to see if these compoundsincrease sleep via PPARα.

Materials and Methods:

Animals: Animal maintaining and experiments were in accordance withNational Institute of Health guidelines and were approved by theInstitutional Animal Care and Use committee of the Rush University ofMedical Center, Chicago, Ill. Ppara-null and their wild-type (WT)controls were purchased from Jackson Laboratory. Mice were housed inventilated micro-isolator cages in an environmentally controlledvivarium (7:00 A.M./7:00 P.M. light cycle; temperature maintained at21-23° C.; humidity 35-55%). Animals were provided standard mouse chowand water ad libitum and closely monitored for health and overallwell-being daily by veterinary staff and the investigator.

Reagents: Rabbit polyclonal anti-PPARα antibody (Abcam; Cat # ab189159;WB and IHC), mouse anti-NeuN antibody (Millipore; Cat # MAB377), rabbitpolyclonal anti-PPARβ antibody (Abcam; Cat # ab8937; WB and IHC),anti-PPARγ antibody (Abcam; Cat # ab66343; WB and IHC), anti-NMDAR2Aantibody (Cell Signaling for WB at a dilution of 1:1000, Cat #4205;Abcam for IHC, Cat # ab169873), anti-GluR1 antibody (Cell Signaling forWB at a dilution of 1:1000, Cat #13185; Abcam for IHC, Cat # ab131507),anti-CREB antibody (Cell Signaling for WB at a dilution of 1:1000 and ICat a dilution of 1:200, Cat #9104), and anti-Arc antibody (Abcam for WBat a dilution of 1:1000, Cat # ab118929) were used in this study.Different pharmacological compounds including 9-octadecenamide(Cat#02136), hexadecanamide (Cat#S350435), 2,4-bis(α,α-dimethyl benzyl)phenol (Cat #372129), gemfibrozil (Cat #G9518), clofibrate (Cat#C6643),fenofibrate (Cat#F6020), GW9662 (Cat#M6191), WY-14643 (Cat #C7081), andMTT-based toxicity assay kit (Stock No. TOX-1) were purchased fromSigma-Aldrich. GST-PPARα-LBD and GST-PPARβ-LBD were purchased fromProtein One. On the other hand, 3-hydroxy 2, 2-dimethyl butyric acidethyl ester (Cat #sc-216452) was purchased from Santa Cruz.

Isolation of Mouse Hippocampal Neurons: Hippocampal neurons wereisolated from fetuses (E18) of pregnant female Ppara-null andstrain-matched WT littermate mice as described by us^(6,13,35-36) withsome modifications. Briefly, dissection and isolation procedures wereperformed in an ice-cold, sucrose buffer solution (sucrose 0.32 M, Tris0.025 M; pH 7.4)³⁷. The skin and the skull were carefully removed fromthe brain by scissors followed by peeling off the meninges by a pair offine tweezers. Next, a fine incision was made in the middle line aroundthe circle of Willis and medial temporal lobe was opened up. Hippocampuswas isolated as a thin slice of tissue located near the cortical edge ofmedial temporal lobe. Hippocampal tissues isolated from all fetal pups(n>10) were combined together and homogenized with 1 ml of trypsin for 5minutes at 37° C. followed by neutralization of trypsin. The single cellsuspension of hippocampal tissue was plated in the poly-D-lysinepre-coated 75 mm flask. Five min after plating, the supernatants werecarefully removed and replaced with complete neurobasal media. The nextday, 10 μM AraC was added to remove glial contamination in the neuronalculture. The pure cultures of hippocampal neurons were allowed todifferentiate fully for 9-10 days before treatment^(35,36,38).

Isolation of Mouse Astrocytes: Astrocytes were isolated from mixed glialcultures of 7 d old mouse pups according to the procedure of Guilian andBaker³⁹ as described earlier^(17,31,40).

Lentiviral Cloning of FLPpara and Mutated Ppara (ΔsbdPpara):

Site Directed Mutation:

Mouse PPARα ORF cloned in pCMV6-AC-GFP vector (cat # MG 227641) waspurchased from Origene. MG227641 was mutated at Tyr314 with aspartate(Y314D) and Tyr464 with aspartate (Y464D) by site-directed mutation kit(Stratagene)⁶. Two primers in opposite orientation were used to amplifythe mutated plasmid in a single PCR reaction. The PCR product wasprecipitated with ethanol and then phosphorylated by T4 kinase. Thephosphorylated fragment was self-ligated by T4 DNA ligase and digestedwith restriction enzyme DpnI to eliminate the non-mutated template. Themutated plasmid was cloned and amplified in Escherichia coli (DH5-astrain) competent cells.

Generating pLenti6.3/V5-TOPO® Constructs of FLPpara and ΔsbdPpara

Briefly, each construct was amplified by PCR, using primer pair(sequence) and every product had a single adenosine (A) to the 3′ end.Then the TOPO cloning reaction was performed using Invitrogen kit(K5315-20) with pLenti6.3/V5-TOPO vector. For transformation One-ShotStbl3 competent cells were used. Sequencing of the clones was performedat ACGT Inc.

Producing Lentivirus in 293FT Cells

293FT cells were cultured with 95% confluency in Opti-MEM media withoutantibiotics. Next day, ViraPower™ Packaging Mix (9 μg/reaction) andpLenti expression plasmid DNA containing either FLPpara or ΔsbdPpara (3μg/reaction) (12 μg total) were mixed in 1.5 mL of serum-free Opti-MEM®I Medium. In another tube, 36 μL of Lipofectamine® 2000 was added in 1.5mL of serum-free Opti-MEM® I Medium with gentle mix. After 5 minutes ofincubation at room temperature, both the reactions were combined andincubated for 20 mins. After that, the mixture was applied to HEK-293FTcells and incubated overnight at 37° C. in a humidified 5% CO₂incubator. The next day, the media was replaced with serum-free Opti-MEMmedia and further incubated for 48-72 hrs at 37° C. in a humidified 5%CO₂ incubator and then supernatant containing viral particles wascollected. Viral particles were concentrated with lenti-concentratorsolution and MOI was calculated.

Isolation of Nuclear Extracts and Gas Chromatography Mass Spectra(GC-MS) Analysis of PPARα-Ligand Interaction

Sample Preparation

Either E18 cultured mouse hippocampal neurons or hippocampal tissue of6-8 week old male C57/BL6 mice were homogenized in ice-cold nondetergenthypotonic buffer [10 mM HEPES (pH 7.9), 1.5 mM MgCl₂, 10 mM KCl, 100 mMDTT, protease and phosphatase inhibitor cocktail]. After 10 min ofadditional incubation in the hypotonic buffer, the homogenate wascentrifuged at 8,000 g at 4° C. for 10 min. Next, the pellet washomogenized in ice-cold extraction buffer [10 mM HEPES (pH 7.9), 1.5 mMMgCl₂, 0.21 M NaCl, 0.2 mM EDTA, 25% (v/v) glycerol, 100 mM DTT,protease and phosphatase inhibitor cocktail], placed on a rotatingshaker at 4° C. for 1 h, and then centrifuged at 18,000 g for 10 min.The supernatant (nuclear fraction) was incubated with 1.5 μg of GSTPPARα LBD (Protein One) at 4° C. for 6 h in a rotating shaker. Thereaction mixture was passed through glutathione column (Pierce® GST SpinPurification Kit), washed four times [50 mM Tris HCl (pH 7.4), 100 mMNaCl, protease and phosphatase inhibitor cocktail] and then eluted withfree glutathione. The eluate was transferred to methanol: chloroform:water (4:3:1) mixture and then centrifuged at 14,000 rpm for 90 sec. Theorganic phase was collected, evaporated in the SpeedVac, reconstitutedwith 30 μL chloroform or acetonitrile, and then analyzed by GC-MS. Inanother case, E18 cultured hippocampal neurons were transduced withlentiviral particles conjugated with PPARα-LBD or different GFP-taggedmutated constructs followed by pulling down with anti-PPARα antibody orpassing the extract through GFP-column of Vector Fusion-Aid GFP Kit (Cat# MB-0732). After that, the eluate was collected from the column with 5MNaCl solution, concentrated with PD-10 desalting column and analyzed forGC-MS.

GC-MS Analyses

A JEOL GCMate II (JEOL USA, Peabody Mass.) mass spectrometer was used inthese experiments. The gas chromatograph was an Agilent 6890Plus(Wilmington Del.) equipped with a G1513A auto-injector with 100 vialsample tray connected to a G1512A controller. The gas chromatographycolumn was a fused silica capillary column with a nonpolar 5% phenyl 95%dimethylpolysiloxane phase (Agilent HP-5 ms), 30 meters long, 0.25 mminternal diameter, 0.25 μm film thickness. The carrier gas was Helium(99.9995% Research Grade) run through a STG triple filter (Restek Corp.)at a constant flow rate 1.1 mL/min. The injector was held at 275° C. andwas fitted with an Agilent 4 mm ID single taper split liner containingdeactivated glass wool. One μL of solution was injected at a split ratioof 20:1. The initial oven temperature was 40° C. held at 2 min, raisedto 300° C. at a rate of 10° C. (FIG. 2A-E) or 20° C. (FIGS. 2K & 2L) permin, then held for 17 min (FIG. 2A-E) or 30 min (FIGS. 2K & 2L). Thisexplains the variable retention times of the identified compounds. Totalrun time was 45 min.

The mass spectrometer was a benchtop magnetic sector operating at anominal resolving power of 500 using an accelerating voltage of 2500volts. The spectrometer was operated in full scan EI mode (+Ve) with thefilament operating at 70 eV scanning from m/z 10 to m/z 850 using aliner magnet scan. The scan speed was 0.3 sec per scan. The solventdelay was 4.0 min. Data analysis was performed using the TSS Prosoftware (Shrader analytical & Consulting Laboratories, Inc., DetroitMich.) provided with the spectrometer. Reconstructed ion current (RIC)chromatographic peaks using ions unique to each compound were used forquantitation. Mass calibration was performed using perfluorokerosene(PFK).

In Silico structural analyses of PPARα complexed with OCT, HEX and HMB.

Ligand Preparation

Ligands (OCT, HEX and HMB) were subjected to LigPrep module implementedin Tripos software^(X1), which converted the 2D to 3D structure. Thenusing the ionization engine, the ligand was prepared at pH 7.0±1. Theappropriate stereoisomers were generated along with the low energeticconformers.

Protein Preparation

The crystal structures for PPARα (3VI8.pdb), β (3GWX.pdb), and γ(3U9Q.pdb) were imported from the pdb databank. The protein preparationmodule of Tripos was utilized to fix up the hydrogen bondingorientation, bond orders, charges, missing side chain atoms, missingloop, protonation at physiological pH, and side chain bumps. Finally,staged minimization was performed for all three protein structures.

Docking of the Ligands

The Surflex docking module implemented in Tripos was used to carry outthe docking of OCT, HEX and HMB in PPARα, β and γ crystal structures.After the docking, three major scoring functions such as Total Score (afunction of −Log K_(d)), Crash Score (penalty score reflecting theinappropriate penetration of the ligand into the active site pocket) andPolar Score (depicting all the favorable polar interactions) wereobtained.

We also computed the binding free energy of OCT, HEX and HMB in PPARα,using Molecular Mechanics Generalized Born Surface Area approach⁴². Toaccount for the structural deformation upon binding, we includedadaptation expense that accounts for changes in the intramolecularenergetics (ΔG⁰ _(int)). For ligand strain energy, we specified a 5åregion of the receptor from the centroid of the ligand to be flexible sothat the protein structure was relaxed in the computation of the bindingenergy of the ligands.

To soften the potential for the non-polar part of the ligands, the vander Waals radii of the atoms were scaled to 0.8 in a regular dockingexperiment. This allowed the dock pose to show as a successful pose evenif the distance between the ligand atoms and the protein atoms are lessthan 1 Å away from each other. We increased the scaling factor to 1.2,in order to eliminate the unreasonable poses.

TR-FRET Analysis

TR-FRET assay was performed using Lanthascreen TR-FRET PPAR-alphacoactivator assay kit (Cat # PV4684). In this assay, different doses ofstatin drugs were incubated with GST-tagged recombinant PPARα LBDprotein, Terbium (Tb)-tagged anti GST antibody and Fluorescein(FL)-tagged PGC1α as directed in the manufacturer's protocol. The entirereaction was set up in corning 384 well plates by an automated roboticinjector. Each plate was centrifuged, incubated in a dark place for 30mins, and then analyzed “molecular devices analyst” machine equippedwith dichroic mirror. The excitation wavelength and emission wavelengthwere set at 340 nm and 540 nm wavelength respectively.

Thermal Shift Assays

Thermal shift assays were performed in Applied Biosystems 7500 standardreal-time thermal cycler machine with commercially available thermalshift dye kit (Life technologies; Cat #4461146). For each reaction,purified protein (0.5 μg to 1 μg) was added to 18 μL of thermal shiftbuffer provided with the kit, and 1-2 μL of dye. Reaction was set 96well PCR plate in the dark and then placed in the thermal cycler machineusing the following two-stage program [(25° C. for 2 mins) 1 cycle; (27°C. for 15 sec, 26° C. for 1 min) 70 cycles; auto increment 1° C. forboth stages]. The filter was set at ROX with no quencher filter and nopassive filter.

Microarray Analyses

RNA samples were collected from hippocampal tissue of WT and Ppara-null(αKO) mice using Qiagen RNeasy kit (Cat#74104). Quantity and purity ofRNA were determined using the NanoDrop LTE (Nanodrop Technologies,Wilmington, Del., USA). The mRNA of each sample was converted into cDNAusing SuperScript III First-Strand synthesis Kit (Thermofisher; Cat#18080-051). Next, each cDNA sample was diluted at 1:2 ratio, mixed withSYBR Green qPCR Master Mix (Applied Biosystems, Thermofisher; Cat#4309155), and then aliquoted on 96 well Mouse Plasticity qPCR-arrays(SABiosciences; Cat #PAMM-126Z). Then 96-well plate was placed in ABIPrism 7500 standard qPCR System and run with stage 2, step 2 (60.0°C.@1:00 min) “data collection” module. Once PCR is done, Ct values wereimported from the PCR console and uploaded in SABiosciences website forfurther analyses. As recommended, we used online software modules toproceed with further calculations. Data normalization was performed bycorrecting all Ct values with the average Ct values of 12 constantlyexpressed housekeeping genes (HKGs) present on the array. PCR-arrayresults were displayed by clustergram analyses with three colorpresentation from green (low expression) to black to red (highexpression).

RT-PCR Analysis

Total RNA was digested with DNase and RT-PCR was carried out asdescribed earlier^(17,18) using a RT-PCR kit from Clontech. GAPDH(glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase) was used to ascertain that anequivalent amount of cDNA was synthesized from different samples.

Real-Time PCR Analysis

Real time PCR was performed in the ABI-Prism7700 sequence detectionsystem (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, Calif.) as describedearlier^(17,18) using TaqMan Universal Master mix and FAM-labeled probesand primers (Applied Biosystems). Data were processed by the ABISequence Detection System 1.6 software and analyzed by ANOVA.

Immunoblot Analysis

For whole-cell and tissue lysates, samples were homogenized in RIPAbuffer containing protease and phosphatase inhibitors (Sigma), passed 10times through a 26-gauge needle, rotated end over end for 30 min at 4°C., and centrifuged for 10 min at 18,000×g. The supernatant wasaliquoted and stored at −80° C. until use. Protein concentrations weredetermined using a NanoDrop 2000 (Thermo Fisher), and 15-30 μg samplewas heat-denatured and resolved on 10% or 12% polyacrylamide-SDS gels,transferred to 0.45 μm nitrocellulose membranes under semidry conditions(15V for 12 min). Membranes were blocked for 1 h with blocking buffer(Li-Cor), incubated with primary antibodies overnight at 4° C. undershaking conditions, washed, incubated with IR-dye-labeled secondaryantibodies (1:17,000; Li-Cor) for 45 min at room temperature, washed,and visualized with the Odyssey Infrared Imaging System (Li-Cor). Blotswere converted to grayscale and then binary, analyzed using Fiji, andnormalized to appropriate loading controls.

Immunohistochemical Analysis

Hippocampal regions were dissected from 18-day-old embryonic fetus asdescribed elsewhere (PMID: 25007337), combined and plated inpoly-D-lysine coated plate for another 2-3 weeks for branching. Afterthat, these neurons were transduced with GFP-containing lentivirions for2 d. Neurons were stained with Dylight-554-conjugated phalloidin (Cat#21834; Thermofisher) as per manufactures protocol and visualized influorescence microscope. For tissue staining, 10 μm paraffin embeddedmouse brain hippocampal sections were made from 8- to 10-week-old maleWT and Ppara-null mice and immuno-stained with anti-PPARα and anti-NeuNantibodies.

Statistical Analyses

All values are expressed as the mean±SD. Differences among means wereanalyzed using one- or two-way ANOVA with dose of ligands or genotype asthe independent factors. Differences in behavioral measures wereexamined by independent one-way or repeated-measures ANOVAs using SPSS.Homogeneity of variance between test groups was examined using Levene'stest. Post-hoc analyses of between-subjects effects were conducted usingScheffe's, Tukey's or Games-Howell tests, where appropriate. p<0.05 wasconsidered statistically significant.

The following experiments will be conducted to test the efficacy of HMB,HEX and OCT for treatment of neurodegenerative disorders, lysosomalstorage disorders and body weight control. The examples set forth belowillustrate the experiments exemplify the use of HMB. Similar experimentswill be conducted with HEX and OCT.

Adoptively-Transferred Experimental Allergic Encephalomyelitis (EAE). MSModel.

Female SJL/J mice (4-5 weeks old) will be used. Donor mice will beimmunized s.c. with 400 μg bovine Myelin Basic Protein (MBP) and 60 μgM. tuberculosis in Incomplete Freund's Adjuvant (IFA). Animals will besacrificed 10-12 days post-immunization, and the draining lymph nodeswill be harvested and single cell suspensions will be cultured in RPMI1640 supplemented with 10% Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS), 50 μg/mL MBP, 50 μM2-ME, 2 mM L-glutamine, 100 U/mL penicillin, and 100 μg/ml streptomycin.On day 4, cells will be harvested and re-suspended in Hank's balancedsalt solution (HBSS). A total of 2×10⁷ viable cells in a volume of 200μL will be injected into the tail vein of naive mice. Pertussis toxin(150 ng/mouse; Sigma-Aldrich) will be injected once via i.p. route on 0day post-transfer (dpt) of cells. Mice will be treated with OCT (2 and 5mg/kg body wt/d), HEX (2 and 5 mg/kg body wt/d) and HMB (10 and 20 mg/kgbody wt/d) via gavage. During treatment, these drugs will be mixed in0.5% methylcellulose. Therefore, control animals will receive only 0.5%methylcellulose as vehicle. Six mice will be used in each group. Femalemice (4-5 week old) will be randomly selected for any group.Experimental animals will be scored daily for 30 days by a maskedinvestigator, as follows: 0, no clinical disease; 0.5, piloerection; 1,tail weakness; 1.5, tail paralysis; 2, hind limb weakness; 3, hind limbparalysis; 3.5, forelimb weakness; 4, forelimb paralysis; 5, moribund ordeath.

Relapsing EAE in 5B6 PLP-TCR Tg Mice.

PLP₁₃₉₋₁₅₁-specific 5B6 TCR Tg mice (provided by Prof. Vijay Kuchroo,Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.) will be used. Female Tg mice (4-5weeks old) will be immunized with 10 μg of PLP139-151 in M. tuberculosisin IFA as described above. Mice will be treated with OCT (2 and 5 mg/kgbody wt/d), HEX (2 and 5 mg/kg body wt/d) and HMB (10 and 20 mg/kg bodywt/d) via gavage. During treatment, these drugs will be mixed in 0.5%methylcellulose. Therefore, control animals will receive only 0.5%methylcellulose as vehicle. Six mice will be used in each group. Femalemice (4-5 week old) will be randomly selected for any group.Experimental animals will be scored daily for 30 days by a maskedinvestigator.

Chronic EAE.

C57BL/6 mice will be immunized with 100 μg of MOG35-55 as describedabove. Mice will also receive two doses of pertussis toxin (150ng/mouse) on 0 and 2 dpi. Mice will be treated with OCT (2 and 5 mg/kgbody wt/d), HEX (2 and 5 mg/kg body wt/d) and HMB (10 and 20 mg/kg bodywt/d) via gavage. During treatment, these drugs will be mixed in 0.5%methylcellulose. Therefore, control animals will receive only 0.5%methylcellulose as vehicle. Six mice will be used in each group. Femalemice (4-5 week old) will be randomly selected for any group.Experimental animals will be scored daily for 30 days by a maskedinvestigator.

Histological Microscopy.

On 14 dpi (first chronic phase), five mice from each of the followinggroups (control, EAE, EAE+HMB, and EAE+vehicle) will be anesthetized.After perfusion with phosphate buffered saline (PBS) (pH 7.4) and thenwith 4% (w/v) paraformaldehyde solution in PBS, cerebellum and wholespinal cord will be dissected out from each mouse. The tissues will befurther fixed and then divided into halves: one-half will be used forhistological staining and the other half will be used for myelinstaining. For histological analysis, routine histology will be performedto obtain perivascular cuffing and morphological details of CNS tissuesof EAE mice. Paraformaldehyde-fixed tissues will be embedded inparaffin, and serial sections (4 μm) will be cut. Sections will bestained with conventional H&E staining method. Digital images will becollected under bright-field setting using an ×40 objective. Slides willbe assessed in a blinded fashion by three examiners for inflammation indifferent anatomical compartments (meninges and parenchyma).Inflammation will be scored using the following scale as described: formeninges and parenchyma: 0, no infiltrating cells; 1, few infiltratingcells; 2, numerous infiltrating cells; and 3, widespread infiltration.For vessels: 0, no cuffed vessel; 1, one or two cuffed vessels persection; 2, three to five cuffed vessels per section and 3, more thanfive cuffed vessels per section. At least six serial sections of eachspinal cord from each of five mice per group will be scored andstatistically analyzed by ANOVA.

Staining for Myelin.

Sections will be stained with Luxol fast blue for myelin. Slides will beassessed in a blinded fashion for demyelination by three examiners usingthe following scale: 0, normal white matter; 1, rare foci; 2, a fewareas of demyelination; and 3, large areas of demyelination. At leastsix serial sections of each spinal cord from each of five mice per groupwill be scored and statistically analyzed by ANOVA.

Semi-Quantitative RT-PCR Analysis.

Total RNA will be isolated from splenic T cells and spinal cord by usingthe RNeasy mini kit (Qiagen, Valencia, Calif.) and from spleen andcerebellum by using the Ultraspec-II RNA reagent (Biotecx laboratories,Inc, Houston, Tex.) following manufacturer's protocol. To remove anycontaminating genomic DNA, total RNA will be digested with DNase.Semi-quantitative RT-PCR will be carried out using a RT-PCR kit fromClonetech (Mountain View, Calif.). Briefly, 1 μg of total RNA will bereverse transcribed using oligo(dT) as primer and MMLV reversetranscriptase (Clontech) in a 20 μL reaction mixture. The resulting cDNAwill be appropriately-diluted, and diluted cDNA will be amplified usingTitanium Taq DNA polymerase and the following primers. Amplifiedproducts will be electrophoresed on a 1.8% agarose gels and visualizedby ethidium bromide staining.

(SEQ ID NO: 1) iNOS: Sense: 5′-CCCTTCCGAAGTTTCTGGCAGCAGC-3′(SEQ ID NO: 2) Antisense: 5′-GGCTGTCAGAGCCTCGTGGCTTTGG-3′(SEQ ID NO: 3) IL-1β: Sense: 5′-CTCCATGAGCTTTGTACAAGG-3′(SEQ ID NO: 4) Antisense: 5′-TGCTGATGTACCAGTTGGGG-3′(SEQ ID NO: 5) MBP: Sense: 5′-TGGAGAGATTCACCGAGGAGA-3′(SEQ ID NO: 6) Antisense: 5′-TGAAGCTCGTCGGACTCTGAG-3′(SEQ ID NO: 7) GAPDH: Sense: 5′-GGTGAAGGTCGGTGTGAACG-3′(SEQ ID NO: 8) Antisense: 5′-TTGGCTCCACCCTTCAAGTG-3′

The relative expression of each gene with respect to GAPDH will bemeasured after scanning the bands with a Fluor Chem 8800 Imaging System(Alpha Innotech, San Leandro, Calif.).

Real-time PCR analysis will be performed using the ABI-Prism7700sequence detection system (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, Calif.).Briefly, reactions will be performed in a 96-well optical reactionplates on cDNA equivalent to 50 ng DNase-digested RNA in a volume of 25μL, containing 12.5 μL TaqMan Universal Master mix and optimizedconcentrations of FAM-labeled probe, forward and reverse primersfollowing the manufacturer's protocol. All primers and FAM-labeledprobes for mouse genes and GAPDH will be obtained from AppliedBiosystems. The mRNA expressions of respective genes will be normalizedto the level of GAPDH mRNA. Data will be processed by the ABI SequenceDetection System 1.6 software and analyzed by ANOVA.

Flow Cytometry.

Two-color flow cytometry will be performed. Briefly, 1×10⁶ lymph nodecells (LNC) or splenocytes suspended in flow staining buffer will beincubated at 4° C. with appropriately diluted FITC-labeled Ab to CD4 for30 min, washed, and re-suspended in fixation and permeabilizationsolution. Following incubation in dark for 30 min, cells will be washed,blocked with test Fc block (anti-mouse CD16/32) in permeabilizationbuffer, and subsequently incubated with appropriately diluted PE-labeledAbs to Foxp3 at 4° C. in the dark. After incubation, the cell suspensionwill be centrifuged, washed thrice, and re-suspended in flow stainingbuffer. The cells then will be analyzed through FACS (BD Biosciences,San Jose, Calif.). Cells will be gated based on morphologicalcharacteristics. Apoptotic and necrotic cells will not be accepted forFACS analysis.

OCT, HEX and HMB Will be Tested for Inhibition of Infiltration ofMononuclear Cells, Inflammation and Demyelination in the Spinal Cord ofEAE.

Infiltration of autoreactive T cells and associated mononuclear cells isa hallmark of EAE as well as MS. OCT, HEX and HMB treatment will betested for attenuation of infiltration and inflammation inadoptively-transferred EAE mice. Mice receiving OCT, HEX and HMB from 8dpt (onset of the acute phase) will be sacrificed on 16 dpt. H & Estaining will be examined for widespread infiltration of inflammatorycells into the spinal cord of EAE mice verses HMB treated mice. Therelative level of inflammatory cells will be quantitated.

OCT, HEX and HMB treatment will be examined to determine whether thesedrugs are capable of inhibiting the expression of proinflammatorymolecules in the spinal cord of EAE mice. Expression of pro-inflammatorymolecules like iNOS and IL-1β will be observed in the spinal cord ofuntreated EAE mice compared to control mice and HMB-treated mice.

Demyelination is the most important pathological feature in MS, which isalso modeled in EAE animals. Therefore, it will be examined whether OCT,HEX and HMB treatment protects EAE mice from demyelination. Spinal cordsections will be stained by luxol fast blue (LFB) for myelin andobserved for widespread demyelination zones in the white matter orrestoration of myelin. To confirm these findings, the expression ofthree myelin genes, myelin basic protein (MBP) and proteolipid protein(PLP), will be examined.

Experiments will also be carried out testing HMB, HEX and/or OCTtreatment in connection with Parkinson's disease (PD). Examples aredescribed using HMB.

Animals and MPTP Intoxication.

Six- to eight-week old C57BL/6 mice will be used. For acute MPTPintoxication, mice will receive four intraperitoneal (i.p.) injectionsof MPTP-HCl (18 mg/kg of free base; Sigma Chemical Co., St. Louis, Mo.)in saline at 2-h intervals. Control animals will receive only saline.

HMB Treatment.

Mice will be treated with HMB (10 and 20 mg/kg body wt/d) via gavage.HMB will be mixed in 0.5% methylcellulose (MC) and from 3 h after thelast injection of MPTP, mice will be gavaged with 100 μL HMB-mixed MConce daily using gavage needle. Therefore, control MPTP mice receivedonly MC as vehicle.

Western Blot Analysis.

Immunoblot analysis for DJ-1 and TH will be carried out. Briefly, cellhomogenates will be electrophoresed, proteins will be transferred onto anitrocellulose membrane, and bands were visualized with an Odysseyinfrared scanner after immunolabeling with respective primary antibodiesfollowed by infra-red fluorophore-tagged secondary antibody(Invitrogen).

HPLC Analyses.

Striatal level of dopamine will be quantified in Complete Stand-AloneHPLC-ECD System EiCOMHTEC-500 (JM Science Inc., Grand Island, N.Y.).Briefly, mice will be sacrificed by cervical dislocation after 7 days ofMPTP intoxication and their striata will be collected and immediatelyfrozen in dry ice and stored at −80 C until analysis. On the day of theanalysis, tissues will be sonicated in 0.2M perchloric acid containingisoproterenol and resulting homogenates were centrifuged at 20,000×g for15 min at 4 C. After pH adjustment and filtration, 10 μl of supernatantwill be injected onto an Eicompak SC-3ODS column (Complete Stand-AloneHPLC-ECD System EiCOMHTEC-500 from JM Science Inc., Grand Island, N.Y.)and analyzed following the manufacturer's protocol.

Upregulation and/or maintenance of PD-related beneficial protein such asDJ-1 in the nigra during neurodegenerative insults may have therapeuticefficacy in PD. MPTP intoxication should decrease the level of DJ-1 invivo in the nigra. Oral treatment of MPTP-intoxicated mice with HMB willbe tested for protection of DJ-1 in the nigra. Protection of nigraltyrosine hydroxylase (TH) levels and dopamine (DA) levels in the striatawill also be investigated after MPTP treatment in the presence andabsence of HMB.

Future experiments will evaluate whether HMB treatment improves motorfunctions in MPTP-intoxicated mice. Male C57/BL6 mice will beintoxicated with MPTP and from 6 hours after the last injection of MPTP,the mice will receive HMB (10 and 20 mg/kg body weight/day) via gavage.The mice will be tested for motor functions (A, rotorod; B, movementtime; C, number of movements; D, rest time; E, horizontal activity; F,total distance; G, rearing; and H, stereotypy) 7 days after the lastinjection of MPTP. The data will be means±SEM of six mice per group.

Additional experiments will be conducted to determine if HMB, HEX and/orOCT treatment protects hippocampal neurons and improves memory andlearning in 5XFAD mice, an animal model for Alzheimer's disease.Briefly, six-month old male 5XFAD mice will be treated with OCT (2 and 5mg/kg body wt/d), HEX (2 and 5 mg/kg body wt/d) and HMB (10 and 20 mg/kgbody wt/d) via gavage. During treatment, these drugs will be mixed in0.5% methylcellulose. Therefore, control animals will receive only 0.5%methylcellulose as vehicle. After 30 d of treatment, mice will be testedfor Barnes maze, T maze and Novel Object Recognition. Conclusion will bedrawn from analysis of at least six mice per group. Hippocampal sectionswill be also double-labeled for NeuN (marker of neuron) and TUNEL(marker of apoptosis). Results will represent analysis of twohippocampal sections of each of six mice per group.

Experiments will be also carried out in fibroblasts of patients ofBatten disease, one of the lysosomal storage disorders. Fibroblasts ofpatients with late infantile Batten disease will be treated with OCT (1and 2 μM), HEX (1 and 2 μM) and HMB (10 and 20 μM) for 24 h followed bymeasuring the activity of tripeptidyl peptidase 1 (TPP1) activity asdescribed by us¹⁹. After drug treatment, cells will be also monitoredfor lysosomal biogenesis using Lysotracker as described by us²⁰.

In order to examine whether OCT, HEX and HMB can induce weight loss,obese (ob/ob) mice will be treated with OCT (2 and 5 mg/kg body wt/d),HEX (2 and 5 mg/kg body wt/d) and HMB (10 and 20 mg/kg body wt/d) viagavage. During treatment, these drugs will be mixed in 0.5%methylcellulose. Therefore, one group of animals will receive only 0.5%methylcellulose as vehicle. After a month of treatment, body weight willbe monitored. Six mice will be used in each group.

The above Figures and disclosure are intended to be illustrative and notexhaustive. This description will suggest many variations andalternatives to one of ordinary skill in the art. All such variationsand alternatives are intended to be encompassed within the scope of theattached claims. Those familiar with the art may recognize otherequivalents to the specific embodiments described herein whichequivalents are also intended to be encompassed by the attached claims.

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TABLE 1 Peak integration statistics of mass spectrometric analyses forHEX and OCT in Ppara-null hippocampal neurons infected with lentivirionscontaining different Ppara constructs. Rel. Ion, Peak R.T, Adjusted Peakarea of Abundance Sample Name m/z minutes peak area Int. Standard (RA) %RA HEX ↑ Vector Only 255.01 13.71 17632 916408 0.019240338 1.92 |FL-Ppara 255.01 13.7 23806805 989368 24.06263898 2406 | Y314D- 255.2313.7 637636 1710699 0.372734186 37.3 | Ppara | Y464D- 255.01 13.72 186461149966 0.016214392 1.62 | Ppara | Y314D/Y464D- 255.17 13.71 6843 5751460.011897849 1.19 ↓ Ppara OCT ↑ Vector Only 281.13 14.49 79623 9164080.086885972 8.69 | FL-Ppara 280.97 14.5 24671057 989368 24.93617845 2494| Y314D- 281.23 14.51 827358 1710699 0.48363739 48.4 | Ppara | Y464D-281.24 14.49 266871 1149966 0.2320686 23.2 | Ppara | Y314D/Y464D- 281.0514.49 128107 575146 0.222738226 22.3 ↓ Ppara Ppara-null hippocampalneurons were transduced with lentivirions containing different Pparaconstructs for 48 h followed by the affinity purification through GFPcolumn. After that, the eluted fraction was fractionated withchloroform-methanol extraction procedure and the organic phase wasanalyzed by GCMS. Peaks for Hexadecanamide (HEX) and 9-octadecenamide(OCT) were analyzed and their detailed peak integration statistics weredisplayed above. Peak area was adjusted with baseline and thennormalized with the peak area of the internal standard[2,4-Bis(α,α-dimethylbenzyl)phenol]. The normalized value was shown asthe relative abundance and finally presented in a percent scale.

TABLE 2 List of physiologically available possible nuclear ligands ofPPARα in brain Class of Biosynthetic Compounds MW process CAS Number3-Hydroxy-(2,2)- 160.0  Fatty acid 69737-23-1 dimethyl butanoicOxidation acid, ethyl ester Thiosemicarbazones 190-200 Unknown unknownThiazoles 220-240 Unknown unknown Thiazolidine esters 250-270 Unknownunknown Hexadecanamide 255.01 Very long chain 629-54-9 Fatty acid βoxidation 9-octadecenamide 281.38 Very long chain 301-02-0 Fatty acid βoxidation

1. A method of modulating peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α(PPARα) activity in a cell in a subject in need thereof, the methodcomprising: administering an effective amount of a PPARα ligand to thesubject, the PPARα ligand selected from the group consisting of3-hydroxy-2,2-dimethyl butyrate (HMB), hexadecananamide (HEX) and9-octadecenamide (OCT).
 2. The method according to claim 1 wherein thePPARα ligand is HMB.
 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein thePPARα ligand is HEX.
 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein thePPARα ligand is OCT.
 5. The method according to claim 1, comprisingmodulating the PPARα activity in a neuronal cell.
 6. The methodaccording to claim 1, comprising modulating the PPARα activity in ahippocampal cell.
 7. The method according to claim 1, comprisingadministering the effective amount of the PPARα ligand to a subjecthaving dementia, a neurodegenerative disorder, a lysosomal storagedisorder or obesity.
 8. The method according to claim 7, wherein theneurodegenerative disorder is selected from the group consisting ofParkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis,Huntington's disease and HIV-associated dementia.
 9. The methodaccording to claim 7, wherein the lysosomal storage disorder is selectedfrom the group consisting of Batten disease, Tay-Sach's disease,Farber's disease and Fabry's disease.
 10. The method according to claim1, wherein the effective amount of the PPARα ligand is delivered orally.11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the effective amount of thePPARα ligand activates the PPARα activity in neuronal cells.
 12. Themethod according to claim 1, wherein the effective amount of the PPARαligand increases synaptic function in the subject.
 13. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein the effective amount of the PPARα ligandupregulates calcium entry into neuronal cells.
 14. (canceled)
 15. Amethod of treating a neurological disorder in a subject, the methodcomprising: administering an effective amount of a PPARα ligand to thesubject, the PPARα ligand selected from the group consisting of3-hydroxy-2,2-dimethyl butyrate (HMB), hexadecananamide (HEX) and9-octadecenamide (OCT).
 16. A method of treating a lysosomal storagedisorder in a subject, the method comprising: administering an effectiveamount of a PPARα ligand to the subject, the PPARα ligand selected fromthe group consisting of 3-hydroxy-2,2-dimethyl butyrate (HMB),hexadecananamide (HEX) and 9-octadecenamide (OCT).
 17. (canceled)